“Shawn the Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom” key art.
GKids/Aardman Animations
Shawn the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, the latest stop-motion animated movie from Aardman Animations, is getting bleating great reviews from Rotten Tomatoes critics.
Aardman, of course, is the studio behind writer-director Nick Park’s Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit shorts and the feature film Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, as well as two acclaimed Chicken Run movies. Another of the company’s big successes is the Shaun the Sheep franchise, which consists of two other films, a TV series and specials.
Directed by Steve Cox and Matthew Walker, Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom opened in theaters nationwide on Friday. In the wooly character’s latest big-screen adventure, Shaun turns into a mad scientist to save the day when Farmer clumsily ruins his flock’s pumpkin patch. Things don’t go as planned, however, as Farmer goes missing and a wild beast emerges from the woods of Mossingham.
Rated PG, Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom stars the voices of Justin Fletcher, John Sparks, Paul Whitehouse and Nina Sosanya.
Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom to date has scored a near-perfect 98% “fresh” critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer based on 59 reviews. RT’s Critics Consensus, Audience Summary and Popcornmeter score based on verified user ratings are still pending.
By contrast, 2015’s Shaun the Sheep Movie edges out Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom with a 99% “fresh” critics’ score on RT based on 171 reviews. The other movie in the series, 2019’s A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, earned a 96% “fresh” critics’ score on RT based on 83 reviews.
The overwhelmingly positive reception of Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom bodes well for the film’s awards season prospects, as both A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon and Shaun the Sheep Movie earned Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature Film.
What Are Individual Critics Saying About ‘Shaun The Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom’?
Peter Travers of The Travers Take is among RT’s critics who give Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom a “fresh” score, writing, “Nothing to traumatize the kid fan base, just some of the best stop-motion animation anywhere, all done by hand, in a new Halloween classic from the Aardman gang.”
Kevin Maher of The Times (UK) also celebrates the hand-made quality of Shaun the Sheep: The Tale of Mossy Bottom, writing in his “fresh” take of the film on RT, “Each frame, each goofy expression, is a profoundly moving testament to hand-crafted intimacy in a cinematic medium that is increasingly AI-assisted.”
John Nugent of Empire Magazine is also a fan of Aardman’s latest, writing in his “fresh” RT review summary, “Daft and delightful, as all Shaun the Sheep escapades are. This is what properly good kids’ entertainment looks like.”
In his “fresh” take of the film on RT, Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter notes, “Unlike the frenetic, in-your-face style of so many American animated films, the charmingly low-key Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom always feels understated, as if slightly embarrassed when the humor becomes lowbrow.”
In her “fresh” review summary of the film on RT, Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times praises the tributes Aardman makes with the new Shaun the Sheep feature, writing, “Mossy Bottom is, theoretically, a horror film. It pays homage to legends of Bigfoot as well as an array of classic cinema sources.”
Fran Kursztejn of In Review Online is the only critic on RT who gives Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom a “rotten” score, writing, “It is almost certainly the best of the three [Shaun the Sheep] films, but has very little of the off-kilter construction that allows Aardman’s other work to shine.”
Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is playing in theaters nationwide.
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