A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

 

Aardman strikes again! Well, sort of. Relatively shortly after their first 'Shaun the Sheep' full length, they decided a sequel had to be made and even if it is a lot of work every time again, this one came fairly rapidly. But how does it hold up compared to the most excellent first outing of our beloved woolly friend?

Pretty darn well, as it turns out.

If the title wasn't a dead giveaway, this time, strange things are afoot in Mossy Bottom. One night, a spaceship lands, soon after which the entire community is going space-crazy. Of course, the actual ship is quickly gone (hidden by some sort of cloaking device), yet a shady government agency is on the job, hoping to actually find both ship and possibly aliens. 

What does this have to do with Shaun? Well, the alien turns up in the barn where it is discovered by Shaun. The creature, known as Lu-La, is uncanny in its impressions of pretty much everything, but it is also rather hungry and alone and desperately seeking its spaceship in order to return home. Meanwhile, the farmer wants to buy a new harvester and sets up a sort of themepark in order to gather funds. 

Things get more complicated quickly as it soon turns out that Lu-La is a little child and has no idea how to fly the spaceship, and Lu-La, Shaun and Bitzer are even captured by the organisation. How will they ever get the poor alien home?

So yes, whereas the previous one was a smaller tale, this one goes all out, including numerous science fiction references to films and series. Often, Spielberg gets a callback, but for those in the know, there's a brilliant little nod to 'Dr Who' as well. But this also means that the film has a vastly different feel than the first one. For starters, this one is all about gags and jokes and is rather unrelenting. To be fair: it is hilariously funny, to be sure, but it does mean that the heart and soul is clearly lessened. The first one was still very funny, but had a rather emotional story behind it, what with the search for the missing farmer. Here, they try to do the same kind of thing that 'ET' did, only the emotional core of the tale doesn't quite impact as much. We all pretty much know how everything will turn out. This also makes this one less memorable than the first one. 

Not that it is bad, dear me no. It's Aardman. You'd be hard pressed to find something bad that they have created. But it just a little less of everything. 

They did up the ante on the special effects, which makes sense considering this is a science fiction story. The lighting is truly spectacular and some tricks they pulled off are quite baffling. As in: "How the heck did they pull thàt off?"

So is it worth a watch? Absolutely. This goes double if you enjoy other Aardman works. But it is only fair to say that the first Shaun-film remains better engraved on the mind and heart, whereas this one is a lot of fun, yet lacks the emotional core that made the first one so special.