Looking for clues: Two nosey characters from ‘The Sheep Detectives’.
THE SHEEP DETECTIVES ***1/2 (110 minutes) PG
Believe the sheep.
That’s the key to The Sheep Detectives, a delightful, delightfully inventive family film lark in which a flock of sentient sheep investigate the murder of their beloved shepherd (Hugh Jackman).
He loved reading murder mysteries to them each evening, thus planting into their ovine minds how a crime story unfolds and providing a cute little meta edge to the yarn.
As the local village plod (a nice turn by Nicholas Braun) runs through the list of usual suspects, including a prim lawyer played by veteran Emma Thompson, the sheep drive a parallel story that, frankly, develops to a remarkable degree.
We learn of their mythology, their belief in an afterlife and their confrontation with mortality. It is both philosophical and moving.
And we’re talking here about talking sheep, so kudos to director Kyle Balda (Lorax; Minions; Despicable Me 3; Rise of Gru) and writer Craig Mazin (Hangover 2&3; Scary Movie 3&4) for bringing the superbly rendered sheep to life.
The film is based on the 2005 German book Three Bags Full by Leonie Swan. Let’s see if her sequel Big Bad Wool, published last year, gets a similar run.
MORTAL KOMBAT II **1/2 (116 minutes) MA
It’s more of the same, with a cavalcade of extended, blood-gushing fight sequences prolonging this martial arts-fantasy-action-chop-socky soiree, an OK sequel to the 2021 game-based hit.
Playing washed-up action movie star Johnny Cage, Karl Urban (The Boys; Bones from the Star Trek films) is pulled into the action wherein he is one of the warriors tasked with saving Earth by winning fights in some inter-dimensional tournament.
Cartoonish pacing and dialogue keep things moving between the same-same clashes, with Josh Lawson returning to provide a decent quotient of one liners as he steals every scene he is in. (How’s about a spinoff film for this guy?)
Seen in the enhanced viewing conditions of an Imax theatre, the battles got loud enough to warrant finger plugging while the prevalence of flashing blue, green and red thunderbolts during the fights were tough on the old glazzies. You might want to earplugs and a welding goggles in case it gets too much.
DON’T BE PREY ** (94 minutes) M
Very average documentary about marathon swimming focussing on Mark Sowerby, a Brisbane businessman who found solace in the water after his investment company Blue Sky collapsed.
To be brutally honest, the few minutes spent on this corporate mess prove far more interesting than the rest of the film, in which Sowerby and other swimmers test their endurance by crossing a series of hazardous channels known as the Oceans Seven.
Unspooling like a rough cut of a one-hour TV doco, the film unintentionally raises a question about the wisdom of risk-taking in extreme sports.
To wit: if you choose to swim in waters you know are inhabited by sharks, then get bitten by a shark, precisely how much sympathy do you deserve?