Early Man

There is a specific kind of magic in seeing a thumbprint on a character’s cheek. In an era where big-budget animation is defined by the hyper-real fur of The Lion King remake or the mathematically perfect water physics of Disney, Aardman Animations remains a glorious, tactile outlier. Watching Early Man on my laptop while my neighbor was very loudly trying to assemble IKEA furniture through the wall—the rhythmic hammering actually synced up weirdly well with the stop-motion movement—I was reminded of why I love this studio. It feels human. It feels like someone actually sat in a room and pinched this movie into existence.

Released in 2018, Early Man arrived at a strange crossroads for cinema. We were deep into the "franchise fatigue" era, yet stop-motion, one of the oldest tricks in the book, was trying to compete with the sleekness of the MCU. Directed by the legendary Nick Park, the man who gave us Wallace & Gromit, the film is a bizarre, pun-heavy mashup of a prehistoric adventure and a classic sports underdog story.

The Tactile Charm of a Digital Desert

The story follows Dug, voiced with wide-eyed earnestness by Eddie Redmayne, a caveman who wants more for his tribe than just hunting rabbits. When the "Bronze Age"—led by the pompadoured, money-obsessed Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston)—invades their valley with armored mammoths and superior technology, Dug strikes a deal. The fate of the valley will be decided by "The Sacred Game." Or, as we call it, football.

What follows is essentially Space Jam for people who prefer a nice cup of tea over a Gatorade. The adventure lies not in a quest for a magical artifact, but in the tribe’s journey from the literal Stone Age into the overwhelming, bronze-plated metropolis of the invaders. The world-building here is delightful. The Bronze Age city is a labyrinth of gears and ego, a sharp contrast to the cozy, muddy woods of Dug’s home.

The camaraderie of the tribe is the film's heartbeat. Timothy Spall voices Chief Bobnar with a weary, fatherly grumpiness, while Maisie Williams plays Goona, a Bronze Age resident who joins the cavemen because her own society won't let women play the game. It’s a subtle nod to the contemporary conversations about representation in sports, handled with a light, Aardman-esque touch rather than a heavy-handed sermon.

A Very British Underdog Story

If you aren't a fan of puns, Early Man might be your version of Jurassic purgatory. But for the rest of us, the writing is a joy. Tom Hiddleston’s French-ish accent is doing enough heavy lifting to support the British economy, and his performance as Nooth is a masterclass in comedic villainy. He’s greedy, vain, and obsessed with "sliced bread," the hot new invention of the Bronze Age.

The humor is incredibly specific. There’s a "Message Bird" voiced by Rob Brydon that mimics the voices of the people delivering the messages, leading to some of the funniest bits of ventriloquism ever put to clay. It’s this kind of whimsical nonsense that keeps the adventure from feeling too rote. Even when the plot follows the predictable beats of a sports movie—the training montage, the "we can’t do it" moment, the final-minute triumph—the sheer weirdness of a giant prehistoric mallard or a hog named Hognob keeps things fresh.

Lord Nooth is essentially a prehistoric version of a FIFA executive, which is to say, a cartoon villain. The film’s commentary on "modern" sport—the commercialization, the ego, the flashy kits—is surprisingly sharp for a movie aimed at kids. It suggests that while technology (bronze) changes, human greed and the simple joy of kicking a ball around (stone) stay exactly the same.

Why This Prehistoric Kickabout Got Benched

Despite the pedigree, Early Man mostly vanished from the public consciousness. Why? Part of it was brutal timing. It opened in the U.S. just as Black Panther was becoming a cultural supernova, effectively sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Additionally, the film’s heavy focus on "football" (soccer) is often a tough sell for American audiences, who don't always connect with the deep-seated cultural obsession the UK has with the pitch.

It was a risky $50 million bet on a medium that is notoriously slow and expensive. While the budget shows on screen—the stadium sequence is massive in scale for stop-motion—the return of $53 million meant it was largely labeled a disappointment. It’s a shame, because it’s a film that earns its 89-minute runtime without a second of filler. It doesn't try to be an "instant classic" or launch a cinematic universe; it just wants to make you laugh at a caveman hitting himself with a club.

In the landscape of contemporary animation, Early Man is a reminder that there is still room for the small, the silly, and the handmade. It doesn't have the emotional gut-punch of Toy Story or the visual complexity of Spider-Verse, but it has a soul. It’s a cozy, hilarious adventure that feels like a warm hug from a very talented person who isn't afraid to get a little clay under their fingernails.

Early Man is a delightful, minor-key victory for Aardman that deserved a much larger audience than it found in 2018. While it doesn't reinvent the wheel—even if it does show us how the wheel was invented—the charm of its voice cast and the wit of its script make it a perfect Sunday afternoon watch. It’s a testament to the idea that sometimes, the old ways are still the best ways to tell a new story.