While the adolescent viewers will be entertained by the physical comic timing that comes with clay stop-motion techniques, the adult audience can also expect to be treated to some British tongue-in-cheek humour from the screenplay’s play of words.
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With the advancement of technology, contemporary animated feature films have been met with great fanfare as characters and storytelling becomes very much alive. Pixar Animation Studios is a leading illustration to most people’s knowledge.
Stop-motion animation may have been out of the limelight, but some would most definitely recall The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, Wallace and Gromit, and Chicken Run. Academy Award winner Nick Park is back to instill life into clay in this week’s Early Man and shows how some things never grow old.
Opening his animated feature with dinosaurs and cavemen fighting during lunchtime in the prehistoric age just to get a piece of one another, Early Man begins with an asteroid impacting earth. It appears that the asteroid not only wiped out the dinosaurs but also inspired cavemen towards football.
While the adolescent viewers will be entertained by the physical comic timing that comes with clay stop-motion techniques, the adult audience can also expect to be treated to some British tongue-in-cheek humour from the screenplay’s play of words.
Early Man discusses evolution as it pits cavemen from the Stone Age with civilisation from the Bronze Age. While this simply doesn’t make any sense, Dug (voiced by Eddie Redmayne) and his fellow cavemen seek to better themselves through practice and hard work so as to take on their upgraded successors from the Bronze Age. There is an underlying message on how it takes more than talent and resource to truly succeed – in this instance teamwork and determination.
Inspirational themes of how one should never give up one’s dream and fulfill one’s destiny regardless of status and gender are also present to keep parents pleased. Goona (voiced by Maisie Williams) practices football every night as femal presence on the soccer field is deemed inappropriate. Dug also eventually receives his tribal Chief Bobnar’s (voiced by Timothy Spall) support and approval to rise up to the occasion and stand up to Lord Nooth’s (voiced by Tom Hiddleston) adversity.
Beyond this, Early Man is unfortunately based on a thin story that leaves much to be desired. Nevertheless, it is still a celebration of the good old days – when football is about teamwork and sportsmanship and not measured by player transfer fees, when people of the past strive hard to achieve excellence and not take things for granted, and when stop-motion technique teaches a thing or two that computer-generated techniques may not be capable of.
While not the best that it could have been, Early Man is still an essential animation milestone that director Nick Park should be proud of. Imagine a master filmmaker crafting his or her next masterpiece on celluloid film.
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