Review: 'Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom' delivers Aardman's clay-animated wackiness in an efficiently hilarious package

If you’re familiar with the clay-animated works of Aardman Animation — the folks behind Wallace & Gromit — you know that the studio’s latest, “Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom” is going to pack more laughs in 80 dialogue-free minutes than you otherwise might have thought possible.

Shaun, you may recall, was introduced in 1995, in the Wallace & Gromit short “A Close Shave,” the most rambunctious of the sheep that W&G had to free from rustlers. Shaun has gone on to a popular TV series and now three movies, all hilarious and lacking any recognizable language, 

As the new movie begins, it’s nearly Halloween, and the sheep are about to celebrate the fruits of their long labor, tending to a secret pumpkin patch. Meanwhile, their farmer is hoping to ask the local veterinarian out to the town’s annual Halloween Hoedown. Before he can, though, he stumbles into the pumpkin patch, destroying the entire crop.

The ever-inventive Shaun borrows one of the farmer’s science books, and develops a formula that will grow one seed into a full-sized pumpkin in a matter of days. Eventually Shaun and the other sheep realize the formula is unstable — but not before the farmer gets some mixed in with his anti-baldness lotion, and glops it all over his scalp. Soon the farmer has grown great amounts hair all over his body, until the nervous townspeople think they’re being attacked by a giant hairy monster. And it’s up to Shaun, his flock and their sheepdog, Bitzer, to put things right again.

The directors, Aardman veterans Steve Cox and Matthew Walker, keep the action and the gags moving so briskly that you may need a repeat viewing or two to get all the jokes. Writers Mark Burton and Giles Pilbrow, along with a small army of animators, make sure those jokes are worth the second view — sometimes looking back to classic silent movies and just as often throwing in a modern reference to see who’s paying attention. (There’s a “Game of Thrones” gag that nearly put me on the floor.)

The movie manages to be quite universal — with the absence of discernible dialogue, just hums and grunts — and also specifically British. Another of my favorite jokes involves Bitzer borrowing the farmer’s truck, but carefully placing the “L” sticker, the British indicator of a student driver, on the tailgate.

“Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom” is also that rare beast, a Halloween movie that viewers of any age can enjoy. Something this delightfully wicked this way comes not often enough.

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‘Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, September 18, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for mild scary action. Running time: 80 minutes.