Primitive comedy endearingly engaging
Aardman Animations star Nick Park, the brilliant mind behind the adventures of “Wallace and Gromit,” tries to outdo the Flintstones in his latest comedy, “Early Man.”
The film — set at the exact moment the Stone and Bronze ages collide — milks humor from primordial playfulness and primitive puns.
On that level, it scores big. The film slightly misses the goal, however, with the kind of humanity Park has presented through the years
Still, the miss is minor, with the movie overall being one of the most delightful tales of men in animal pelts in recent film and TV history.
The action starts a few minutes after the dawn of time, with some cavemen and -women having found a sanctuary in a lush valley surrounded by a no man’s land where giant killer ducks roam. The cave dwellers live a simple life of sleeping, hunting rabbits and sleeping more. The only member of the group who shows initiative is Dug (voiced by Eddie Redmayne), who wants the group to think in bigger terms.
That plan is put on hold when Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) sends his more civilized followers into the valley to start mining the bronze that Nooth has used to become fabulously rich. Nooth’s world is so advanced that it has metal weapons, wheels and soccer.
To save the valley, Dug and his beastly sidekick, Hognob, must defeat Nooth’s super-talented team in a winner-take-all soccer match. Their only hope emerges in the form of Goona (Maisie Williams), a young girl from Nooth’s world who Park.
PG (for rude humor and some action) 1:29 at the Columbus 10 at Westpointe, Crosswoods, Dublin Village 18, Easton 30, Georgesville Square, Grove City 14, Lennox 24, Movies 16 Gahanna, Pickerington, Polaris 18 and River Valley theaters
has been denied the right to show off her sports skills because of gender bias.
Much of the humor in the script by Mark Burton and James Higginson (based on a story by Park) relies heavily on anachronisms for comedy.
Playing a game of soccer between early man and notquite-as-early man twists history, of course — a tactic that continues with the use of a weird bug as an electric razor and giant black-andwhite bugs worn as if they were soccer shoes.
Such history-bending has been used before — in “The Flintstones” — but there remains something entertaining about seeing the modern world play out in the primitive world.
The vocal life that Hiddleston succeeds in giving to Nooth makes everything around Nooth seem funnier.
The film automatically generates smiles through the distinct style Park uses to fashion his stop-animation characters, whose exaggerated facial features and body shapes are instantly both endearing and silly.
Taking “Early Man” as a whole, the film combines weirdly funny comedy with a sweet story about what it means to depend on others.
The parts come together effectively, allowing the homo sapiens of “Early Man” to score plenty of jokes that are smartly dated.
“Early Man.”