Like a featherweight boxer who can’t compete with heavyweights in the ring, but just may be (as the tv announcers like to say) pound-for-pound the best fighter around, so too little Aardman Animations if you count product minute-by-minute. For three-and-a-half decades, they’ve produced more joy, more whimsical laughs and sheer pleasure than any animator out there . . . per released minute. This delightful half-hour short, released on NetFlix without enough fanfare four years back*, a typical example of their consistent excellence. Aimed a bit more toward the little ones than the divine WALLACE AND GROMIT films, it follows a family of field mice (Dad & children, no Mom) whose new adopted member is a just hatched robin. An event seen from the robin’s POV inside the shell. Getting his mice family in and out of trouble as they forage for leftover crumbs, Robin dreams of bringing home an entire sandwich. Bumping into a ‘winged’ magpie, something of a hoarder that one, Robin is encouraged to fly and, with this added skill, is able to be a provider as well as a troublemaker. Lots of singing in this one while mercifully skipping the oversell & push found in so many other family-marketed rivals. A big relief from the Dreamworks/Illumination model; Aardman thriving on grins and chuckles, avoiding the hunt for the canned laughs others prize. And how well it weathers! Note that the ‘stop-motionographers’ have swapped out Plasticine for articulated figures covered with needle felting. Goodbye tell-tale fingerprints, alas. But if it helps save costs to give us more Aardman product, I’m okay with it.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *You’ll have to wait a while, but Aardman has just signed to make this a series to join their SHAUN THE SHEEP shorts. Of the SHAUN spin-off features, FARMAGEDDON/’19 especially fine. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-shaun-sheep-movie-farmageddon-2019.html
No comments:
Post a Comment