The Sheep Detectives

A woolly family caper with a nostalgic flavour, The Sheep Detectives conjures flattering comparisons with Babe. Like that 1995 Best Picture nominee, it’s an adaptation from a well-thumbed children’s book – Leonie Swann's German-language bestseller ‘Three Bags Full’ – with talking animals to charm the stoniest soul, plus a smattering of excellent jokes. It’s not on the same level as that porcine classic but Minions director Kyle Balda does a lovely job rounding up a clever murder-mystery plot, some talking sheep and a few deeper thoughts in a way that will bring a smile to all ages. 

Balda and screenwriter Craig Mazin, who adds The Sheep Detective to The Last of Us, Chernobyl and Scary Movie on one of Hollywood’s most dextrous CVs, shifts the book’s setting from Ireland to the English countryside. Like a live-action Aardman film tweaked for a US audience, it’s English village life at its quaintest – population: Hugh Jackman’s grouchypants shepherd George Hardy; a hopeless policeman (Succession’s Nicholas Braun); a rival farmer (Tosin Cole); a vegetarian-hating butcher; and a shady clergyman. When Nicholas Galitzine’s big-city reporter turns up looking for a scoop, his best bet might be the mail-tampering hotel landlady (Hong Chau), because it’s the kind of place where nothing else happens.

Except that in the bucolic countryside outside of town, George has just been poisoned in the dead of night. The devoted shepherd has weaned his flock on evening readings of murder-mystery novels, so when the fluffy flock finds him dead, it’s their mission to bring the perpetrator to justice. Soon, they’re eavesdropping as Emma Thompson’s haughty lawyer reveals that their old shepherd had a $30 million fortune tucked away. The game is a-hoof!

An irrepressibly jolly way to pass a couple of hours of lambing season

Obviously, this is a world in which sheep understand each other perfectly, but the humans only hear the usual baas and bleats (I loved that the MGM lion gives a cheery ‘baa’ rather than the usual roar ahead of the opening credits). There’s a starry voice cast behind the woollen brethren (Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bryan Cranston, Brett Goldstein and Rhys Darby). Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ brainy Shetland sheep Lily leads the sleuthing, with reluctant help from Bryan Cranston’s loner ram Sebastian. Chris O’Dowd is Mopple, the only sheep who can’t deliberately forget painful memories and who has the seen-too-much air of a grizzled Vietnam veteran. 

The CG sheep are impressively rendered by Framestore, the VFX house behind Paddington, and Mazin delivers one or two killer gags, including a road-crossing chicken and an inspired scene in which one sheep tries to explain God to another (‘He damns things,’ ‘What, like a beaver?’). There’s heart in its message of inclusivity and loyalty, too. 

One or two dark moments will bring fleeting alarm to the youngest viewers, but for a movie in which cinema’s loveable Hugh Jackman is offed in merciless style, it’s an irrepressibly jolly way to pass a couple of hours of lambing season.

In UK and Ireland cinemas Fri May 2. Out in US theaters May 9.