Michael's Movie Grade: B+
An excellent family film.
In this movie, a flock of sheep love their shepherd dearly. The shepherd reads them murder mysteries every night, so when the shepherd is murdered, they feel that they can solve the murder themselves.
While this could just simply rely on its already charming premise, it does so much more than that. This is a surprisingly heartfelt story. The movie actually has some real depth to it as it takes a look at some fairly weighty subjects such as dealing with death, the importance of remembering the bad along with the good and how what is painful can also be beautiful. Though this movie has plenty of silly sheep antics for kids watching, there is also some moments that may emotionally move adults watching it. Like many of the best family movies, there are some truly sad moments among all the silliness, and these sad moments are very effective. Of course this is heavily due to the characters themselves. Each of the sheep are very well thought out characters. There are a lot of them but each still has their own personality. These sheep feel so real to us that we form our own emotional bond to them. As well as being an emotionally effective film, the murder mystery elements are very well done with some great twists and turns. Yet the final reveal makes perfect sense. If you pay close attention to a very early scene, it perfectly foreshadows the reveal at the end.
The humor in this film can be a bit hit and miss. There are some truly laugh out loud moments along with gags that fall completely flat.
While the sheep are very well-defined characters, the human characters (with the exception of the shepherd (though of course being played by Hugh Jackman helps)) are entertaining but lack the depth that the sheep have. They are very basic two-dimensional characters.
A highly recommended movie for the whole family.
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