Gee, among this, Animal Farm, and GOAT, it’s been a big movie year for the ovine class, huh? I suppose Animal Farm wasn’t exactly flattering to sheep, BUT considering major releases can go years without an ovine speaking role, well, sheep, goats, lamb, that spokesman for Buffalo Wild Wings, your ship has come in. Well, your grass/plains traveling landship that is; I’m not sure how this metaphor works.
Somewhere in rural England, there’s a flock of sheep tended by George Hardy (Hugh Jackman), a friend to the woolly and a foe to the skin set. Don’t get too sold on George; he’s our victim. Every night, the good shepherd reads to his fluffy crew. He regales them with whodunnits most often, which is cute because we see the sheep all discussing their literary murder theories after George has quit for the evening.
In retrospect, there is a peculiar, but understandable choice the film made: given the choice of giving the sheep each individual looks and personalities or doing the same for the human suspects, The Sheep Detectives went sheep all the way. Hence, when this thing finished, I still couldn’t have told what might have motivated half the suspects to murder, but I could totally describe all the sheep: Lily (voice of Julia Louis-Dreyfus) the clever one, Sebastian (Bryan Cranston) -the lone wolf-, the sage sheep, the old sheep, the pretty sheep, the pair of aggressive sheep (both voiced by Brett Goldstein, which was a hoot), and the tiny winter lamb, alienated by the flock.
Meanwhile, there were the suspects which are harder to name … hmmmm, there’s George’s daughter shows up and the preacher guy. But what motive did they have? And there’s the idiot cop (Nicholas Braun), but he’s not really a suspect, and a handful more I suppose. This movie is about the sheep. For one morning, George lies dead in the field, and the sheep have to solve the crime of who killer their shepherd or they’ll be merged with a flock destined for slaughter. (George had no intention of profiting off sheep meat, just wool.)
In this film, the sheep can talk to one another, the sheep can understand human speech, but the sheep cannot “talk” to humans. This all lead to some fun comic moments 
like when the sheep force a crime-solving primer on the local constable or when they deliberately steal the cop’s hat to force him to come “discover” a clue left on the sheep farm. Hey, this crime won’t detect itself, now, will it?
Despite a murder taking place and plenty of hints that our heroes might be butchered, The Sheep Detectives promotes itself as family fare, and I think that’s family fair. The mystery might be Knives Out in plot, but the execution is tamer than Zootopia, and more family friendly at that. Is it as good as Zootopia? No. But that also depends on who you speak to. I’d expect a Pixar crowd to prefer Zootopia; I’d expect a Babe crowd to prefer The Sheep Detectives. And if you liked both, odds are you’ll like this one, no ifs, ands, or baaaaaahs.
There was once a clever sheep-ess named Lily
And you’re gonna say, “now, that’s just plain silly”
But this pensive ovine
Read each clue and sign
And ID’ed George’s killer, yes, really
Rated PG, 109 Minutes
Director: Kyle Balda
Writer: Craig Mazin, Leonia Swann
Genre: The unbelievable but cute
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Sheep fans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Wolf fans
