Shaun The Sheep was one of my favorite films of 2015. The skill it took for the filmmakers of Aardman Animations to craft a film that owes a debt to the great comedies of the silent film era in a way that is continuously entertaining without dialogue is beyond admiration. The folks at Aardman have made a name for themselves through their deliberately scrappy stop-motion animation style that has charmed audiences with films like Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Shaun The Sheep was no exception, and their streak continues with the sequel, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, which is being released domestically via Netflix.
In Farmageddon, we once again follow the hijinks of the mischievous Shaun, who – along with the rest of the flock – grows bored by the mundanity of their day-to-day activity, which is being heavily monitored by Father John’s dog, Bingo. Meanwhile, a UFO is seen in town, inspiring a craze amongst the population, one that Father John wishes to take full advantage of by making a theme park based around the recent UFO news. Shaun ends up in contact with an alien being, Lu-La, whose curiosity causes some havoc around town, which attracts the attention of the Ministry of Alien Detection.
The pleasures of Farmageddon are simple, but the craft on display is again wondrous in its effortless display of complexity. Told entirely through grunts, giggles, groans, and gasps, the film utilizes the actions and expressions of the characters to tell its story, which acts as a love letter to a number of modern sci-fi classics from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to The X-Files. The plot itself is really nothing to write home about, but it is a fantastic vehicle for the constant onslaught of slapstick and sight gags that Aardman has perfected over the years.
The animation is as delightful as ever. The care put into every frame is palpable, and while it most certainly doesn’t have the gloss and panache that you’d see a Laika production, the animators put so much care in the craft. There are so many little details thrown in here, moments that could easily be cut out without effecting the story at large, but they do it anyway because it’s all in service to creating this delightful and timeless atmosphere that allows for the humor to resonate with most people, regardless of age and background. Even when the film lingers on a joke that doesn’t totally land, the animation enhances it into something effortlessly endearing.
There is not a ton to dig into when it comes to a film like A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon. It’s just a damn good time from beginning to end, and it’s honestly a bummer that most people won’t get to experience it on the big screen. Writers, Mark Burton and Jon Brown, and directors, Will Becher and Richard Phelan, know how to play to the strengths of the Shaun The Sheep brand while also branching out into some out-there genre territory that – in the hands of lesser filmmakers – would feel like a total jumping-the-shark moment. Instead, it provides a refreshingly earnest and old fashioned counterbalance to the kind of noisy, snarky, and quip heavy animated films that tend to come out these days, and I hope Aardman Animation never stops what they’re doing.