Quick Synopsis: A group of sheep investigates the murder of their shepherd.

A detective drama starring talking sheep. Directed by the same guy who directed the two Minion movies. Written by the guy who wrote The Hangover Part 3 and Scary Movie Part 4. It rained VERY heavily on my walk to the cinema so I was in a pretty shitty mood when I sat down to watch what would surely be something terrible. I even planned how long I was going to wait until I described this movie as “baa-d” in my review.

But then The Sheep Detectives (TSD, Tooshed) ruined my plans by actually being really good. Not “good for a kids movie” or “good if you go in with low expectations”, but genuinely good. It’s not the best film I’ve seen this year (at the moment, that’s probably still Project Hail Mary), but is the one I feel the need to recommend to people the most. Mainly because the gap between expectation and quality is huge. Yes, it is a kids movie, but it’s not a kids movie that talks down to the audience. At no point do the sheep do a CGI song and dance to a Taylor Swift song. It doesn’t pander or condescend; it just has a well-written story full of fun characters. The characters are kind of one-note, but they are sheep, so it’s not as though they have access to a lot of human narratives that would drive change, such as money worries, social media, or that the t-shirt they purchased at their first gig over 24 years ago has finally become unwearable. It’s a curious mix of a family film that touches on heavier themes, and Paddington-style cuteness and fun. The characters are a lot of fun to watch. Nicholas Braun’s character is very different from what he normally plays, but he pulls it off. Playing an idiot is like playing crazy; it’s much easier to get wrong than it is to get right. I would say this is the best I’ve seen that kind of character played, but since watching this movie, I’ve watched Hugh Skinner in Twenty Twenty Six. Nicholas Galzatine continues to showcase just how secretly good at comedy he is. I’d have liked to have seen more of Mandeep Dhillon, mainly because she’s always a welcome presence onscreen. The sheep voices are all pretty damn good, too. Bryan Cranston nails his vocal performance. I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus in almost anything, and have seen her in SOOOO much, but this is probably her best performance. Really, the only weak link is Rhys Darby, and he’s not even bad; it’s just that everyone else is much better.

As any fans of who-has-done-this’s can attest to, the story is key. If clues and foreshadowing are too obvious, then the audience will get there before the characters. On the other hand, if they’re too hidden or depend on the audience knowing something they haven’t been told, then the audience will feel cheated. It’s a really tricky tightrope to walk, and TSD puts more hurdles in its way by having the main characters be sheep, so they can’t communicate with local police or anybody else who can help. Plus, it’s aimed at kids. So how do you do a mystery aimed at kids but not make it too obvious for adults? I’m still not sure HOW they did it, but they definitely did. It provides enough suspects. There’s one, in particular, who I felt certain was the killer. They were in the film enough to be notable, but quiet enough that it would be a shock. I was ahead of the filmmakers because I am smart.

I was wrong. I am not smart. And I love that. I love that the reveal is satisfying. I love how, in 30 years time, an author will describe how watching this film as a child was the moment they fell in love with mystery. This will be someone’s introduction to the genre, and it’s hard to think of one that would be better.

There we go, a whole review and I didn’t make one sheep pun. None, didn’t refer to it as a “ewe-done it”, didn’t describe the character as Angela Lambs-bury, no Hercule Poir-ewe, didn’t say it’s a wooly good time, or shear perfection, or describe nervous characters as feeling sheep-ish,