Nick Park‘s new claymation is set in the transitional era between the Stone Age and the Bronze Ageand and filled with cuddly, silly prehistoric people that are reminiscent of the citizens of a certain Gaellic village, but it is a football film at heart. The beginning, set in „early Pleistoecene, near Manchester, around noon“ shows how the ancestors of the current villagers kicked around a glowing stone while developing a holy game with two goals and even immoralized it by drawing it on the walls. During the Stone Age centuries later no one knows what the drawing mean anymore. But then the villagers are expelled from their green valley by Bronze Age people and the youngest and most creative are dragged to the big Bronze city. Once there they don‘t just discover what the drawing back home means, but they also challenge their opponents to a game. If the Ice Age people lose, they have to leave the valley for good and mine bronze from then on. Like its predecessors, EARLY MAN doesn‘t achieve the epic greatness and emotional depth of Nick Park‘s masterpiece THE WRONG TROUSERS, but like all the films from Aardman productions it‘s a lot of fun. The details are lovingly designed as always, the action scenes are more turbulent than exciting, and the adults are slow on the uptake. The youths have more of a clue – Dug, the boy from the village, Goona, the girl from the city, and a warthog named Hognob. And there are a lot of soccer jokes for the soccer fans like a queen named Oofifa the blond team captain Jürgen with the blow-dried hair, and the corny title: Early Man (United).

Toni Ohms

Translation: Elinor Lewy