Though Hugh Jackman toplines the human cast of Kyle Balda's rural whodunnit, the film belongs to its digital but delightful ovine ensemble, voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston and others.
By Guy Lodge
Plus IconGuy Lodge
Film Critic
@guylodge See All
Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios Something of an anomaly in the age of multi-screen households and fragmented viewing, the genuine all-ages family movie gets a canny but uncynical revival in “The Sheep Detectives.” As bracingly odd a proposition to hit the multiplex as any we’ve seen in the last couple of years, the first live-action feature from long-serving Illumination director Kyle Balda (“Despicable Me 3,” “Minions: The Rise of Gru”) is a shaggy hybrid of creature feature and murder mystery that — minus the zippy anthropomorphic world-building of the “Zootopia” films — derives much of its charm and wit from the frank incompatibility of those genres.
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