The team at Aardman is back with Shaun the Sheep, another endlessly delightful animal romp based on the 2007 television series. Written and directed by Mark Burton and Richard Starzak, it’s a bunch of cute, Claymated mishaps as farm kid Shaun tries to chill in the big city, only to have The Farmer end up with a head injury, memory loss and sudden career as a hairstylist to the famous (he shears the hair...like sheep). And as with most British animated creature romps there is an evil containment officer who hates all animals at a murderous level. For these nearly wordless 90 minutes—Shaun the Sheep makes Minions look like a David Mamet script—Burton and Starzak let the animation do the work; like all Aardman productions its frames are densely packed with sight gags, callbacks and wonderfully expressive characters (even a bunch of similar-looking sheep). There’s no head-thumping moralizing to be found here—this ain’t Pixar—except for maybe “help your friends,” which is quite enough to hang a charming film upon.
