What a preposterous idea. Who wants to watch a movie about a flock of sheep intent on discovering who murdered their beloved shepherd? Director Kyle Balda (Despicable Me 3, Minions: The Rise of Gru) turns to live action in The Sheep Detectives and finds more charm than any movie about sleuthing sheep deserves.
Based on German novelist Leonie Swann's Three Bags Full, Sheep Detectives has its eye on younger viewers but doesn't leave their adult escorts far behind. Sheep Detectives smartly follows a standard whodunit arc, arriving at the expected plot points with pleasing efficiency.
The sheep know the mystery formula because the shepherd -- Hugh Jackman's George Hardy -- used to read them detective novels before they retired to the barn for a night's rest. Balda adds a bit of darkness to the bucolic background. The good-guy shepherd is murdered early on, reducing Jackman's screen time, and the story makes room for greedy ambition among its human characters.
Overall, though, The Sheep Detectives involves endearing CGI animals who speak to one another in English. (Human characters can't hear them). Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) portrays the flock's leader. Regina King gives voice to Cloud, a sheep who gets by on good grooming.
Previous to the loss of their caretaker, the sheep had been living an idyllic life. They suppress bad memories, and soothe themselves with a belief about the afterlife: Sheep don't die; they turn into fluffy clouds. Chris O'Dowd's Mopple is the only sheep who remembers the flock's history. Byran Cranston voices a ram who lives apart from the rest of the group.
A winter lamb, rejected by the others, paves the way for an instructional layer about tolerating creatures who don't fit in.
The town's human population includes Derry (Nicholas Braun), a policeman of blatant incompetence. Emma Thompson signs on as a brittle lawyer who tries to administer the late shepherd's will. Molly Gordon plays the shepherd's daughter; she hasn't seen her father in years. The town's butcher, the appropriately named Ham (Conleth Hill), regards the sheep as potential source of profit. Nicholas Galitzine portrays a reporter who's investigating the murder, and Hong Chau plays the operator of the town's hotel.
The human characters add some of the eccentric flavor of an Ealing comedy to a story set in the English countryside.
It's a stretch to think of The Sheep Detectives as a family-oriented classic, but the movie proves amusing enough to earn its place in the world of talking animals that speak the language of quirky entertainment.
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