Film going as of late has been a lot of things we used to get a lot of. It feels like there are more original concepts, horror movies that have legs (both commercially and critically), and now we’re getting family movies that feel like true four quadrant hits with the likes of The Sheep Detectives. Base on a book titled Three Bags Full, The Sheep Detectives follows a herd of CGI talking sheep trying to solve the mystery of who killed their beloved shepherd, portrayed by Hugh Jackman.

The sheep are voiced by a retinue of film and comedy stars, Julia Louise-Dreyfuss takes center stage and is joined by the likes of Chris O’Dowd, Bryan Cranston, Patrick Stewart, and Brett Goldstein to name a few. Their childlike approach to life is shattered when their shepherd is murdered after they wake up. Having been read to each night, they understand the trappings of a murder mystery, even if death is something they thought only happened in stories. That’s the central theme of The Sheep Detectives, not just a whodunnit, but a whatwillhappen as the sheep begin to realize that it’s not just humans that die some day, that fate may be in line for even sheep.

It’s a movie that feels like its cribbing from the likes of Babe in the sense that yes there are talking animals, but it’s not targeting children necessarily. It’s a true family movie, and one that doesn’t rely on those jokes that only mom and dad will get in a *wink wink nudge nudge* sense. There’s a joke early on when a butcher is counting the sheep hoping to come into custody of them and as he is doing so he falls asleep. Because he’s counting sheep! The kind of joke that you’d get out of The Muppet Movie! A genuinely funny joke that might go over a kid’s head but not because it’s too bawdy, because it takes living in the world to understand it.

The Sheep Detectives is also almost guaranteed to make you cry at various points, and talking with friends and colleagues about the movie it seems like that moment is different for different people. There’s a monologue delivered by Chris O’Dowd about how important it is to remember painful things that got me, a small winter lamb that is continuously bullied that had an effect on my wife, and a story that Bryan Cranston tells about why Hugh Jackman’s shepherd character was so important to him that destroyed another friend of mine. It’s a movie that’s got real heart, and it’s a movie about a flock of talking sheep. Turns out the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

While it’s similar I don’t necessarily think it captures the magic that Babe did back in 1995, but does go to show that family movies can be filled with craft and cleverness in ways that you may not expect. It would have been easy to make a plethora of scatological jokes, or rely solely on the cuteness of some of the characters, but the script hold itself just aloft enough to stand apart from some of the lesser works of family film going. The one word of warning I might give is it could bring about some uncomfortable questions about death based on the age of the film goer, as happened two seats down from me in my screening. But there’s nothing untoward about it’s discussion of the topic, just that it’s something that will happen to us all, and the best way to face it is to accept that and remember those that are no longer with us.

3.5/5