The Sheep Detectives
It's cutsie-poo meets murder mystery in this (ostensibly) comical adventure (barely) starring Hugh Jackman as a sheep herder whose CGI flock must solve the riddle of his demise.
I’m feeling fleeced.
I went into “The Sheep Detectives” without a lot of preconceptions. The trailer make it look like a loony comedy starring Hugh Jackman as a lonely sheepherder who talks to his flock, unaware that their brays and baas are actually them talking right back. Something kid-friendly with plenty of CGI hijinks and laughs.
It is that, I guess, though Jackman is in the thing only for a few minutes before his character is killed off. And it’s actually more of an adult-oriented murder-mystery, with the sheep attempting to solve the riddle of their herder’s demise. Think Agatha Christie meets Doctor Doolittle. It’s cutesie-poo enough, though I think children would be pretty bewildered and/or bored by it.
In truth, I must report I almost nodded off a couple of times. Things pick up in the last act, but the second part after George Hardy (Jackman) kicks off is quite dull.
It’s an ensemble piece, with no true lead character. Coming closest is Lilly, the smartest of George’s sheep, voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. George reads to his sheep every evening, favoring murder-mysteries, and Lilly always has the identity of the killer figured out before the end.
Other members of the flock include Mopple (Chris O’Dowd), who lacks Lilly’s wits but has a centered gravity and a long memory; Sir Richfield (Patrick Stewart), a dignified older ram the others look up to; Cloud, the resident pretty girl (Regina Hall); and Sebastian (Bryan Cranston), a literal black sheep with a shadowy past who mostly keeps to himself.
One morning George turns up dead, which is strange since he’s not that old and seemed in good health. Blue and green stains on his hands are the only easily identifiable clue. The sheep have the amazing ability to will themselves to forget traumatic events, except for Mopple, and live in an idyllic state of ignorance where they think sheep don’t die but turn into clouds. But something nags at Lilly about George’s death and she determines to investigate.
On the human side, Officer Derry (Nicholas Braun) is the only policeman in the pastoral village of Denbrook and a complete dolt. Nonetheless, with the unobtrusive help of the sheep — literally dropping clues on his doorstep and the like — he starts to poke into the death.
Despite his attachment to his sheep, it seems George was not well-liked in town, or vice-versa. A shearer by trade, he resented Ham (Conleth Hill), the local butcher, and his business partner, Caleb (Tosin Cole), who had his own flock next door but sold his sheep for meat. He also never attended services at the church led by Reverend Hillcoate (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith), though strangely he frequently left large cash donations. Beth (Hong Chau), the local innkeeper, is very snoopy and even stole a letter George had been mailing.
It turns out this was to his long-lost daughter, Rebecca (Molly Gordon), who arrives in town the same night of the murder, and soon becomes the chief suspect after it turns out George’s will left her an unexpectedly large estate. Other recent arrivals are Lydia Harbottle (Emma Thompson), a haughty lawyer and executor of George’s estate, and Elliot (Nicholas Galitzine), a sniveling young reporter looking for a juicy story to launch his career.
“The Sheep Detectives” was directed by Kyle Balda, who’s helmed a lot of the “Despicable Me” franchise, from a screenplay by Craig Mazin (“The Last of Us”) adapted from the novel “Three Bags Full” by Leonie Swann. The tone they seem to be going for is irreverent and eccentric, but I found the comedy to be largely ostensible.
The sheep are rendered through CGI, decent enough although the uncanny valley grows noticeably wider whenever they interact directly with humans. There’s some goofy stuff, mostly centered around a pair of dimwitted rams who love to bash things, and an adorable little “winter lamb” who is ostracized by his spring counterparts in an allegory about prejudice.
I just never really connected with “The Sheep Detectives.” Maybe my expectations were off, or maybe I simply wasn’t in the right mood. It’s one of those experiences where I like the idea of a movie more than the one they made.