Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon’ on Netflix, Another Baa-Baa-Bounty of Laughs from Aardman

Members of WSMEA — Whimsical-Stop-Motion Enthusiasts of America, of course — take note: A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon is now on Netflix. Finally, the sequel to 2015’s prodigious and mighty Shaun the Sheep Movie (itself a spinoff of the TV series Shaun The Sheep, currently streaming on Amazon Prime) debuts in the U.S., after a bunch of lucky Europeans saw the film during a late-2019 theatrical run. Are we going to MARVEL at the thought of someone in an animation studio moving a clay puppet a millimeter, taking a photo, moving it another millimeter, taking a photo, ad infinitum, and not going utterly mad? LAUGH LIKE CRAZY at the proliferation of pantomime and use of gormless arglebargle instead of dialogue? CHOKE on all the tears after you realize it’s the absolute perfect entertainment for you and your five-year-old? Damn right we are.

A SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE: FARMAGEDDON: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: A quiet evening in the wee burg of Mossington. Suddenly, a light zooms over H.G. Wheels Auto. An old man and his dog stand agape as a UFO lands in a forest clearing. He’s so startled by what he sees emerge from the hatch, he drops his chips (or French fries, you bleedin’ Yank), and the whatever snatches them passionately with his probably very grimy tentacles. One thing is certain: EVERYBODY LOVES POTATOES.

A few miles away, all is as usual on a farm in Mossy Bottom. The sheep try to play frisbee, drive the threshing machine, launch each other out of a cannon, etc., but Bitzer the dog (arglebargle by John Sparkes) stops them. Under his watch, there will be no fun for the sheep. Farmer (also Sparkes) reads UFO headlines in the news, stumbles over crop circles in the field and concocts a cockamamie plan to turn the farm into an alien-themed park. All the better to afford a fancy new thresher, y’know.

Shaun the Sheep (Justin Fletcher), however, soon has an encounter, and it’s one of those close ones. He pals up with the whatever, a bluish-purplish little babbler with puppy ears and eyes who the credits say is Lu-La (Amalia Vitale), which I didn’t quite pick up, but I’ll take their word for it. What’s he doing here on Earth? Well, he’s not probing anyone in tender areas, or collecting specimens, or asking to be taken to anyone’s leader, or pursuing destructive imperialist ambitions. So what other things do aliens do? They need to phone home, of course. Good thing wily, whip-smart Shaun is here to help — especially since government agents are on Lu-La’s trail, making references to 2001 and The X-Files as they attempt to capture him. Meanwhile, Farmer’s capitalist foray is coming to fruition, Bitzer tries not to be bewildered by his flock and all this is coming to a very very very very very very very very very ridiculous head.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Of Farmageddon’s bumper crop of sci-fi movie references, the one it clearly has the most reverence for is E.T., the timeless Spielberg classic that still makes me weep many salty oceans into my beard.

Performance Worth Watching: A boxy robot employed by the government agents steals several scenes by reminding us of another classic silent-film star, WALL-E.

Memorable Dialogue: The only discernible words here are “Zoom zoom!”, the little alien’s onomatopoeic plea to get back to his totes adorbs home planet.

Sex and Skin: None. Not even a single sheared sheep.

Our Take: The M.O. of Farmageddon is simple: pure visual storytelling. Shaun the Sheep is an antidote to the many babbling SpongeBobs, catchphrase-spewing anthropomorphs and singing analogs for Target-exclusive merchandise that dominate animation. When used unwisely, the celebrity voiceover is a scourge. You needn’t worry about that here, where voiceovers are grunts and mutterings, and sight gags, physical expression and action are at the forefront. It’s old-school as heck, inspiring laughs like Tom and Jerry and the Roadrunner did, in all their uberviolent glory — although Shaun is a gentler beast, more prone to slapstick than maimings.

Shaun’s home is Aardman Animations, the house that Wallace and Gromit (say it with me: “Cheeeeese!”) built, whose style is unmistakable — droll, fast-paced, a fine balance of broad comedy and visual detail. Like its feature-length predecessor, Farmageddon is essence of joy, building and executing comic set pieces with madcap Rube Goldbergian intricacy, and allowing the pragmatic Shaun to be his silent little Chaplinesque self. It needs nothing else, but throws in something else, a Very Cute Thing in Lu-La, who charmed my preschooler with his gentle antics. There will be much giggling.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Farmageddon is gobs of fun for me and ewe and everyone ewe know. (I apologize.) I’m not sure if it’ll stick to the ribs quite like the first sheep flick, but we’ll just have to compulsively watch it six more times to find out.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon on Netflix