The Shaun The Sheep Movie is a class act in not only children’s film but in filmmaking generally; not only does Aardman Animations once again show off what they do best but director/writers, Mark Burton and Richard Starzak have created here a hilariously funny, touching and provoking story of being loved and understanding where you most feel at home. Like all of the best kid’s films, it works on one level for them and on a totally different one for the adults watching, to keep them entertained as well. And boy does Shaun deliver.

Starting with a flashback of Shaun (Justin Fletcher), his crew, Bitzer (John Sparkes) and The Farmer (Sparkes) rolling around in the farm, smiles and all – the audience are told right away about their happy life together. But when the film fast forwards to the current day, it seems they all smile a lot less. Instead, routine has become their number one enemy. The Farmer (now much old and grumpier looking) wakes, shaves, yawns, gets dressed and gets ready for a long day of work. Bitzer wakes up the sheep, who groan and moan about having to be sheared and just don’t feel as loved as they used to. Shaun takes it upon himself to help the farm and get some fun back into their lives. They perform a show for The Farmer, by jumping repeatedly over a gate and as The Farmer falls asleep (a nice nod to dreaming about sheep), they carry him into a nearby caravan and think they will have the run of the house for a little while but when the caravan accidentally starts to move down the hill at great speed, the sheep realise they have done something very wrong and a hilarious chase ensues with Bitzer at the front of the pack.

The caravan crashed into the Big City and whilst The Farmer wakes up at a hospital with amnesia and no idea about the accident, the farm has to try and continue as it is meant to. But with no hope and no sign of The Farmer coming back to them, Shaun decides that he must go to the Big City and try and find out what happened. Of course his friends decide to come along as well; so what are you going to do about a flock of sheep running amok? Surely it won’t just be that easy and whilst The Farmer has absolutely no idea about where he has come from, the animals in the Big City have another threat coming their way. Trumper (Omid Djalili), the animal control maniac, runs crazily around the Big City chasing after any animal he can find and throwing them into the slammer. His number one prerogative is to find Shaun by any means possible.

What ensues is brilliant – taking cues from films like Home Alone, Shaun The Sheep Movie understands what it has to do to keep it’s audience interested and to care about the characters, especially as there is absolutely no talking in the film. Yes, that’s right. Apart from sheep bleating and the grumble from the human characters, there is no talking whatsoever (Wall-E eat your heart out!). But this is what makes the film so brilliant and unique, without even needing speech, the story is easy enough to follow and the characters are so layered, so much fun and so well characterised that it’s difficult not to fall in love with them (apart from Trumper, who of course as the pantomime type villain, the audience are told to hate). This is one of the real joys and successes of the film; the ability to bring the audience in and not let go until the very end of the closing credits.

Along the way, the sheep get into plenty of brilliant accidents and situations including dressing up as humans to run away from Trumper, eating at a very posh restaurant and having to break Shaun out of the animal control prison when he has been captured. But at it’s heart, Shaun The Sheep Movie is about family and love and the best children’s movies always manage to layer important and compelling stories into something so entirely watchable and attractive to the audience.