Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom (2026)

When the sozzled farmer turns the pumpkin patch into something resembling the Somme, and with Halloween barely days away, "Shaun" comes up with a cunning wheeze. Using his recently discovered science book, he is going to make a formula that will restore them to their bright orange rotundity. Snag? Well he shoves his magical serum into a hair-growing tube and the blind farmer tries it in the hope that it will restore his locks and thereby improve his luck with the local vet. Off course, he goes a little overboard with the rubbing and next thing he has become something akin to a yeti. With the neighbourhood now terrified by this marauding hairy beastie it falls to "Shaun" and his sheepish pals to try to reverse this procedure before the poor old farmer goes the way of the monster from "Frankenstein" - complete with pitchforks and a windmill! I do struggle a little with the full-length Aardman features and this one really misses the human touch - there's a "Gromit" but no complementing "Wallace" type of thing with some daft or panicky dialogue. I also didn't feel there was as much in the detail with this as with others. There's much less for us to appreciate from the backgrounds; no dubious entendre in the signage or silly shop names. This is much more of a straightforward light-hearted adventure that is still a magnificent piece of artistic craftsmanship, but that just lacks something of the charm that we have seen before. Perhaps it's just because I'm done with sheep and it's ovine comedy antics and although there are moments here that did raise a smile, there weren't enough of them to sustain eighty minutes of storytelling and I left wondering if perhaps these folks need to start from scratch and create something that can seize our attention again. The sheep has been sheared, now it's time for someone new?

#filmreviewhaiku

Painstaking, each frame

Built by hand, still so funny

Fun from start to end