The first time I’d watched Shaun the Sheep had been on a plane. An episode was playing on the overhead screen, and while I’d been vaguely aware of the animated series before—having caught the odd glimpse of our woolly friend while flipping channels—it wasn’t until just then, stuck to my seat with nothing better to do, that I’d given it any real attention. And how I’m glad I did. Having first appeared as a short on the popular Wallace and Gromit series way back in the 90s—courtesy the UK’s wonderfully quirky Aardman Studios (also behind Chicken Run and more recently, Pirates! Band of Misfits)—Shaun the Sheep was spun off into its own show a decade or so later, and just wrapped up its fourth season last year, at which point it had racked up a whopping 130 episodes altogether. What’s given the series such unlikely staying power is the fact that while largely targeted at children, who enjoy the pudgy Claymation, slapstick gags and neatly-packaged moral lessons, there’s also plenty for adults to take in, packed as episodes

generally are with jokes and wry, satirical references that punch quite a few notches above kiddie-comprehension. With a full-length Shaun the Sheep Movie having just come out, fans—young and old—will be happy to find our farmyard friends have managed the leap to a bigger, longer format unscathed. The film, directed and written by Richard Starzak and Mark Burton, doesn’t disappoint in the least—it’s smart, satisfying, full of heart and funny as hell.

Shaun (voiced by Justin Fletcher) and the rest of the gang at Mossy Bottom Farm are pretty comfortable where they are. The Farmer (John Sparkes) might not be as affectionate with the animals as he used to be back in the day—as a sepia-toned montage rolled out early in the film serves to illustrate for us—but he makes sure they’re fed and groomed, with stick-in-the-mud Bitzer (Sparkes again) serving as his loyal four-legged deputy. But things are starting to get a little repetitive; it’s the same schedule, day after day, with little by way of novelty or excitement. Shaun, restless, decides something must be done to break the monotony, and comes up with an elaborate scheme that will involve distracting Bitzer and then putting the Farmer to sleep, so that the animals can have full reign of the house for a whole afternoon.

It’s all going smashingly well at first, but the merry-making is brought to an abrupt stop when a freak accident results in the Farmer rolling off in an unmanned trailer to the Big City, where an eventual knock on the head erases his memory. Bitzer is already off to save his master, and the sheep are soon on his tail, but it’s not long before they realise that they’re totally out of their depth in this strange, new, terrifying place, and locating the Farmer is only one of their problems: they’re also now being chased by an animal containment officer with delusions of grandeur (Omid Djalili). Meanwhile, the Farmer is getting something of a career makeover—although he can’t remember where or how he acquired then (although Shaun and his buds could probably provide some answers), his nifty scissoring skills land him a job at a hairdressing salon, and he soon becomes the talk of the town. Will our friends manage to evade the impounder long enough to find the Farmer? Will he recognise them even if they do? Will Bitzer ever forgive Shaun?

And what kind of trouble might those Naughty Pigs have gotten up to back at Mossy Bottom?

The look of the movie is the first thing to draw you in. At a time when digital animation in film has been consistently breaking new, previously-pegged-as-impossible ground, it might seem a little silly to be singing the praises of such an old-fashioned, stop-motion production as this one. But there’s a noticeable sense of economy, and a great deal of thought, that’s gone into the visuals here—they don’t feel gratuitous the way a lot of CGI can these days. That probably owes, in part, to the sheer physical labour involved in this sort of animation—it apparently takes around 1,500 rearrangements of models and sets to capture a single minute of footage. And, as is typical of Aardman, the attention to detail is incredible: prettily-crafted backdrops and adorable figurines, not to mention the deft manner in which these are controlled, combine to create a rich, textured, whimsical world so charming that you’ll want to step right through the screen.Ilan Eshkeri’s soundtrack proves a good fit, too, zippy and upbeat, especially the title song Feels Like Summer as a recurring motif; unlike a lot of children’s films, the Shaun the Sheep Movie thankfully avoids plugging in the sort of throwaway twee numbers that usually do nothing more than lengthen running time. Stellar animation and scoring by themselves wouldn’t have done the trick, however, had the film slipped in terms of story. But here too, Starzak and Burton manage to create something that, while certainly predictable overall—it is a kid’s movie, after all, and you never doubt that things are going to turn out fine in the end—is still entertaining, and punctuated with enough surprises in its smaller moments, to pull us along. And all that without a single word of dialogue: characters here communicate via gestures or grunts, and of course, the occasional baa. While this expectedly gives the action set-pieces a touch of the air of old-timey silent comedies, visual puns and pop-culture allusions thrown out left and right amidst the exaggerated physical humour, it also makes the movie’s ability to evoke real emotion elsewhere all the more impressive. One particular sequence that takes place in the dank recesses of the Animal Containment Unit, where the poor, incarcerated animals try to look their very best in the hopes that they might get adopted, is heartbreaking. There are a few such scenes scattered throughout, that feel genuinely poignant rather than the generic schmaltz we’re used to, but for the most part, the Shaun the Sheep Movie focuses on wringing out as much laughter as it can from the littlest of details—and does so exceedingly well.

If you’re already a fan of the series, you’re certain to love the movie. If you’ve never heard of Shaun the Sheep before, then you’re in for a real treat. If, however, you’re familiar with the show, and still don’t like it—well, I just don’t think we can be friends.