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A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon Movie Review

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon is a 2019 animated science fiction comedy film directed by Will Becher. It’s the first ever Aardman sequel, and it’s pretty good.

When an alien possessing strange powers crash-lands near the farm, Shaun the Sheep quickly makes a new friend. Together they must run from a dangerous organization who wants to capture the intergalactic visitor. I adored the first movie, and I found it to be the best animation of 2015 after ‘Inside Out’. This one isn’t as great. It’s stupendous in sequel terms, but still it wasn’t as fresh or as hilarious as its predecessor.

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By adding a science fiction scenario, the movie lost its quaint, old-fashioned charm a bit for me, but on the other hand, the film utilized its basic premise stupendously, in particular the many nods and references to classic SF films and television shows were fantastic and so well thought out. And the whole story ain’t too shabby either with that flashback being so good that the ending itself was thus emotionally rewarding and super sweet.

Shaun is once again terrific, and his facial expressions stole the show per usual. But this movie is also focused a lot on the supporting characters, and thankfully all are superb. I found Bitzer absolutely fantastic, especially in his authoritative mode. He’s so cute, and hilarious throughout. Lu-La is an adorable alien creature whom the movie makes you care about, and the entire story with her is excellent. Agent Red got a terrific backstory, the robot is so much fun and the farmer himself got a stellar subplot where he amusingly tried to capitalize on the heightened alien craze.

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A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon is once again gorgeously animated. This stop-motion animation is so tremendously charming that it honestly becomes irresistible. The character designs are wonderful in entirety, very simple, but disarmingly so. The film looks polished and also quite modern with the added effects here and there, which made those SF elements more believable and flashier. The whole movie is very colorful, and consistently pleasing to the eye.

When it comes to its pacing, it’s not amazing, but it’s solid. Sometimes it can get too action-oriented and the action was simply never as fantastic as it was in the original, but still some of it is brilliant, and in particular the space scenes were terrific. I also loved the opening, and the ending is, as I have mentioned above already, super rewarding emotionally.

I just wish the second act of the movie was stronger as that’s where it felt a bit monotonous, especially in the scene transitions and the excessive montages. But overall, the direction was solid and the lack of dialogue was once again quite welcome as it led to a hugely cinematic experience where you can focus your attention fully to the action, adventure and the visuals.

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The humor is terrific for the most part, and some of the scenes, especially those with the dog, are downright hilarious. Overall, as Aardman’s first sequel feature, it’s very strong, stupendous actually. It just wasn’t as phenomenal as the original, at least not to me personally, and meeting that level of quality was always going to be a tall order anyway.

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon overall isn’t as fantastic as the original was. The SF elements robbed it a bit of its inherently rustic charms, and the second act is less involving. Still, the silent comedy formula worked once again as the humor is frequently phenomenal, the simple character designs are very appealing, the ending is so sweet and the movie’s biggest strength is that it is populated with so many wonderful, funny and wholly endearing characters.

My Rating – 4