How does one begin to critique The Sheep Detectives, a perfectly pleasant little movie made for boomer parents and little kids–but not for forty-something moviegoers like me? I’ll begin by saying that both my mom and my 96-year-old grandma threatened me with unclear-at-the-time harm if I criticized this cute movie about talking sheep investigating the mysterious murder of their shepard, who looks a hell of a lot like Hugh Jackman.
Yes, The Sheep Detectives is a family friendly murder mystery involving a colorful but suspicious group of human characters and quite a few wooly ones. From director Kyle Balda (Minions), the movie is mildly entertaining throughout, delivering a healthy heap of silly sheep humor mixed with quaint mystery antics akin to those old-English-woman-in-a-small-town-solving-a-crime BBC shows your mom may or may not have watched back in the day.
It’s an amusing little film that neither takes itself too seriously nor aims to be too ridiculous, either. The sheep are silly, but they are indeed attempting to investigate a murder while preventing the flock from being shipped off to the butcher’s. With a stacked cast including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Brett Goldstein, Bella Ramsey, Chris O’Dowd, and Nicholas Braun, The Sheep Detectives has solid acting and, more importantly, a group of actors who understand how to get the most out of the material.
And the material is… decent. I chuckled at times, I was intrigued by the mystery (but didn’t try too hard to care about the outcome), and overall enjoyed my time, even if the screenplay lingers too long on sheep drama that isn’t bad per se, but doesn’t entirely feel necessary either. Somewhere in here there is a leaner, faster-paced 90-minute movie, but with an actual runtime of one hour and 50 minutes, it feels like it needed one more layer of shearing.
One thing I was impressed by: the visual effects. While perhaps not seamless, you often forget you’re watching a bunch of CGI animals do their thing–the VX team should be commended.
The Sheep Detectives isn’t edgy or clever enough to appeal to someone like me, but it nonetheless baas up enough entertainment value to be worth a viewing–if not for me, then for my boomer parents, my grandma, and my seven-year-old.
For what it’s worth, she squirmed at times and yet declared it was a 10 out of 10 and better than Hoppers. A dubious claim, even for her, but undoubtedly the rest of my family enjoyed it (my dad, too, though he agreed with me on the film’s length).
Will this review leave my grandma’s threat unfulfilled? If you don’t hear from me again, you know who the culprit is.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.