Park plays a blinder

EARLY MAN

Cert Running time

English football is stuck in the dark ages in this deliriously daft family animation. Here, the makers of Wallace & Gromit return to the big screen with a prehistoric adventure, created with their trademark clay model characters and traditional stop-motion technique.

From the kick-off it’s filled with their familiar combination of slapstick, puns and glorious attention to detail.

A determinedly-populist plot pits the local underdogs versus wealthy European sophisticates in a game of football.

Caveman Dug and his tribe are captured by Bronze Age invaders, and only by agreeing to a football match can they win their freedom. He has to train his agriculturally inclined players to work as a team, relying on hard work and heart rather than those suspicious innovations of skill and tactics. Exploitative foreign administrators and gloating Germanic players come in for some harsh treatment, and the way bad guys have used their mineral wealth to fund a team of high-maintenance mercenary foreign players will not be lost on fans of the beautiful game. And there’s no escaping the gentrification of footie either, with the principal players being voiced by posh actors Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston while working-class Johnny Vegas is pushed to the back of the team.

From the opening scene featuring a homage to the stop-motion masterpieces of filmmaker Ray Harryhausen, this is a riot of references to British film history and terrace culture. So the famous words of commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme mingle with nods to Monty Python and Gregory’s Girl.

There’s a return to the director’s chair for four-time Oscar winner Nick Park in his first feature film since the wonderful 2005’s Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Another rabbit features here, and despite some close shaves, no animals were harmed in the making of this movie.