There are times when I genuinely worry about the quality of a movie. Most of the time, when I see a trailer or read a synopsis of a film’s premise, I get a pretty good idea of whether or not it’ll be any good. I’ve been wrong in my assumptions before, obviously, but for the most part, I trust my initial smell test to know what a flick is about, and whether it’s worth my time.
When it came to The Sheep Detectives, however, I confess I was a bit bamboozled. A murder mystery… for kids? With talking sheep? This couldn’t work, right? I mean, you’re literally telling prospective audiences that the farmer George, played by what is likely your biggest star in Hugh Jackman, is not only going to die, but in a manner that suggests foul play, and the story is somehow geared towards children. Huh? I remember thinking that the idea was a bit clever, but given how sanitized PG movies are these days (so-called “rude humor,” i.e. fart jokes, is often enough to “earn” the rating), how was outright murder going to land? My confusion only grew once advance reviews started coming in, as a) Amazon was confident enough in the project to give it a theatrical release and allow for early critiques, and b) it was clocking in at around 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. The average has dropped ever so slightly to 94% since its opening, but that’s a number that suggests true merit, rather than cherry-picked friendly press. What was I to do, other than to dive in and see how it all managed to come together?
Now that I’ve had a couple days to process it, I’m still not sure how it was possible, but I was truly impressed. Somehow, some way, director Kyle Balda (who often works on Illumination films) and writer Craig Mazin (known for Scary Movie and Hangover sequels before pivoting to dark drama series like Chernobyl and The Last of Us) crafted a sweet, silly, and surprisingly smart farce that gives young viewers the thrill of a mystery without talking down to them. Like a kid-friendly version of Knives Out, they deftly deconstruct the genre and subvert the tropes, but in a way that’s more lighthearted than Rian Johnson’s delightfully cynical series. Anchored by a fantastic ensemble cast of live actors and voiceovers, this comes very close to the magic that we’ve been missing far too often at the cinema.
The film isn’t perfect, but it does cater to its target demographic quite effectively. This means that we have to frontload a lot of exposition so that the kids can follow along later. This is to the film’s benefit when it comes to the young ones, but a bit to its detriment for older viewers. In a quaint English village lives (for the moment), George Hardy, a shepherd who cherishes his flock, but who has conflict with a lot of his human neighbors. For every funny animal he introduces, including those voiced by Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, Brett Goldstein, and Rhys Darby, he has at least one enemy in the town, namely another shepherd to whom he leases land (Tosin Cole), a butcher (Conleth Hill, aka Varys from Game of Thrones; I genuinely didn’t recognize him with hair), a gossipy innkeeper (Hong Chau), and the local vicar (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith). Narrating a letter he’s writing to his daughter Rebecca (Molly Gordon), he explains to her his simple joys in country life, and emphasizes the importance of accepting so-called “winter lambs,” who are apparently shunned by the flock. I never thought animal racism was a thing, but here we are.
His favorite activity is relaxing every night by reading detective novels to his menagerie, never realizing that they’re actually listening intently. When he goes to bed early on, the sheep begin debating the latest whodunit, with the particularly intelligent Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) having already solved the case. She’s the de facto leader of the group, guiding the flock – especially the lambs – in their daily lives, and teaching them to willfully forget any unpleasantness, with only her companion Mopple (Chris O’Dowd) and literal black sheep Sebastian (Bryan Cranston) choosing to keep their memories intact.
Meanwhile, in the human world, the town is gearing up for the local cultural festival, which of course is just a tourist trap. Still, the occasion allows for the arrival of small time journalist Elliot Matthews (Nicholas Galitzine) to document the affair. Car trouble keeps him in the area far longer than he’d have wanted, and once George turns up dead, he senses an opportunity for a major story that could elevate his career, so he takes it upon himself to work with the rather inept policeman Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun) to help solve the murder.
That is a ton of information to process in just the first 15 minutes, but it serves the larger point of setting up the stakes and inviting the audience to play along, which is what all good mysteries should do. I fully admit that I was still trying to figure out who was who well after the introduction was complete, but I also realized that the amateur sleuths watching probably aren’t concerned with names, only appearances. They don’t need to know that the innkeeper is called Beth Pennock, only that she’s, well, the innkeeper. It’s about archetypes rather than full identities, which plays into the very genre conventions the film is expertly spoofing.
There is an unfortunate tradeoff with this structure, however, and that’s the fact that the film does have to cater to short attention spans to a certain degree. Lily, Mopple, and Sebastian are the ciphers for the children (as well as the giddy adults), so we have to go along at their pace. And since 2/3 of this group is very hesitant to even get involved, much less figure out the solution, we kind of have to cut corners a bit. As such, once Rebecca arrives with George’s lawyer (Emma Thompson) for the will reading, the cavalcade of potential culprits is quickly abandoned in favor of making Rebecca the prime suspect who will obviously eventually be cleared when we reveal the real killer.
Thankfully, in those few areas where the story comes up a bit short, the dialogue and comedy are there to pick up the slack. There are quite a few overtly hilarious moments, particularly when it comes to Thompson’s performance and some fun edits where Tim tries to suss out his next steps, only to smash cut to Lily just staring at him from across the street. There are also some much more subtle bits that work fantastically well, like a chicken casually crossing the road while Lily and Mopple debate their own fears, or the butcher falling asleep in his van whilst literally counting the head of livestock on the property after George’s death. These are simple kiddie jokes taken in brilliant new directions thanks to the visuals.
The only true “complaints” I have are more under the umbrella of leaving me wanting more. The first is from a technical angle, and that’s the design and execution of the effects on the sheep. While there are a few isolated uses of animatronic puppetry, much of the time the animals are CGI, and it mostly looks exceedingly fake. It’s not so bad when it’s just the sheep on screen, but when they interact with humans, you can tell it looks kind of hacky. This is especially true when Jackman pets and strokes his charges affectionately. You can tell his hand is moving over thin air. It would have been so much better to use live animal actors or more sophisticated puppets, but this is Amazon we’re talking about. I suppose I should be thankful the sheep weren’t AI-generated. Like the info dump early in the film, the kids likely won’t care, but it will age the final product poorly, and in fairly short order.
The second is this idea of choosing to forget traumatic events. It’s a wonderful idea to explore, especially because it coincides with the premise of sheep being easily led and dimwitted. As we see, pretty much anything negative is forgotten, with Lily leading the way, allowing the flock to continue under some pretty unhealthy delusions like death not existing outside of George’s books, and sheep themselves turning into clouds someday, rather than expiring or being slaughtered for food.
It’s a rather profound look at the idea of opting for ignorance instead of acknowledging hard truths. And while it’s done with good intentions, Mopple and Sebastian are living proof that burdens have to be carried and shared for the sake of the common welfare. You can’t perpetually exist in a fantasy world, or else you won’t be ready when reality comes crashing down. That’s an amazing moral, because it engages the kids on their level and speaks to their emotional intelligence as well as their developing rational intelligence.
I just wish there was more of it. The first time we see it, it’s played off like a joke. When George dies, the herd almost forgets, but they’re stopped because they need to understand why he was killed, and by whom. After that, though, we just get two more brief brushes with the concept towards the end, and it’s mostly just for a little character development for Lily. What if we had a moment where Lily accidentally chose to forget a crucial piece of evidence, forcing her to rethink the situation to get back on track? What if the weight of all the sadness finally became too much for Mopple and he decided to memory hole himself at a key juncture? There’s so much potential with this idea, and I feel like we only scratched the surface. Mind you, it was a good scratch, but now I’ve got a thematic itch that can’t quite be satisfied. Oh well, I’ll chalk it up to an embarrassment of riches.
I genuinely don’t understand how this turned out as good as it did. There were so many ways this could have been a disaster. The mystery could have been completely stupid. The themes could have been far too dark. The performances could have been phoned in. There could have been a rap about Old McDonald. But like a great detective, the story and the characters pieced it all together in a way that was unexpectedly superb and largely made sense. Yes, some finer points were sanded down for the sake of the target audience, but like a good shepherd, the film is more concerned with guiding the viewer than just doing the work for them like so many other family pictures would. As an entry point into the genre, this is about as good as you could hope for, and while it sometimes succumbs to the very clichés its making light of, that in itself is part of the fun.
Grade: A-
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? How quickly did you figure out the solution? How come we never addressed the serious crime of opening someone else’s mail? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
I Actually Paid To See This 