The magic of the movies is strong with this one. Take a story syrupy in the extreme, add some talking animals and a too-perfect country village to be believed, and you have the ingredients for a very long 109 minutes. But darn if this live-action, GCI hybrid doesn’t win you over.
Hugh Jackman is the shepherd George Hardy, who loves his herd almost too much and dislikes almost all humans. His love is so strong that he has given them all names and treats them like his children. He even reads to them nightly from his collection of detective novels. While the sheep can converse with each other, the humans only hear the baas.
When George meets an early and untimely end and the police prove incompetent, the sheep have to pitch in and help the authorities. As the investigation expands, you learn more and more about the reclusive shepherd. The human characters are very by-the-numbers, but the mammals’ personalities are much richer.
You would have to be quite cold of heart not to let a little bit of sunshine in with The Sheep Detectives. Its life lessons are worthy of being told, and the human element supports the narrative quite well, if even a little bit one-dimensional. This should prove to be engaging and entertaining to all the members of an open-minded family.
Rob Hudson
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