The Feature Films Of Aardman Animations Ranked From Worst To Best

One of the great underrated purveyors of modern family entertainment, Aardman Animations has been comfortably chugging out feature films and shorts over the last 30 years to acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Over the last few years, Aardman's stop-motion style has been matched in the United States by the Laika studio, with its ambitious storytelling in Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, among others. But this past weekend, Aardman's newest movie, Early Man, got to take center stage as a form of counter-programming against Black Panther.

With Early Man in theaters, it's time to look at the whole of Aardman's feature-length output with this ranking. So, do like Wallace and grab the nearest cheesy snack, and dig in.

The latest film from Aardman, and the first film from director Nick Park in over a decade, is pleasant and charming, but a little too lightweight relative to the rest of the studio's output. Set during the Age of Bronze, Early Man is essentially an underdog sports comedy with lots of cavemen playing European football. Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston voice the hero and villain, respectively; while Hiddleston gets the showier role as a greedy French bad guy, the humor is rarely as sharp as in Aardman's earlier films and the film's absurdity comes in fits and starts. Some of the film's best characters don't speak at all, like our hero's pet hog and a giant, fanged duck who ends up helping out the good guys near the end. Early Man has its charms, but is still kind of a letdown.

Earlier this year, American audiences — too few of them, but that's a different discussion — got to delight at the image of Hugh Grant fully committing to his performance opposite a CGI bear in Paddington 2. (You know, the current best film of 2018. It'll change eventually, but not yet. I digress.) But Grant is no stranger to the wry English family film, as evidenced by his leading voice performance in Aardman's The Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists!. (In the States, the movie was called The Pirates! Band of Misfits, because apparently scientists are just the absolute pits for box office.) The pirates depicted here, led by Grant, are less vicious and more doofy and ridiculous. So of course Grant's typically friendly but awkward personality fits in quite well here, as do fellow voice performers David Tennant, Imelda Staunton, and Martin Freeman. This one's not Aardman's finest, but also a bit underrated relative to the studio's other content.

Time has been...somewhat unkind to Chicken Run, the first Aardman Animations feature film. On one hand, the film's depiction of a group of chickens trying to escape the clutches of a vicious farmer and his wife showcases Aardman's expressive and detailed stop-motion animation, as well as the filmmakers' penchant for intense and crazily designed action sequences. On the other hand, Mel Gibson. In 2000, having Mel Gibson star as the big-name lead of an animated film wasn't a big deal (aside from him lending his star power to the project). While some folks already knew Aardman from the Wallace and Gromit shorts, many people were being introduced to the studio with this film, and why not have Mad Max in the picture to ease people into Aardman's British sensibilities? But in 2018, Mel Gibson's involvement makes this an awkward viewing. The movie is still quite funny, and one of Aardman's best, but it's also impossible to ignore how uncomfortable hearing the voice of Mel Gibson in such a heroic character.