A crime has been written... in the pen

Vilanova and the GeltrúIt is not common for a director specialized in animation to convincingly pivot to live-action. And it is even rarer for the leap to be even more successful than their previous work. A notable surprise, then, is Sheep & Gang, where Kyle Balda, one of the barons of the Gru and Minions franchise, brings Leonie Swann's novel of the same name to the screen (published in Spanish by Salamandra), starring a woolly flock that sets out to solve a murder. It could be argued that the fact that the animals speak and move thanks to digital effects places the film on a borderline with Balda's previous experiences, but far from resorting to caricature, the filmmaker optimizes hyperrealistic technology to make it the humorous pillar of the proposal, reserving eccentricity for details that enrich the background, such as the abundance of neon lights that incongruously illuminate the small British town where the story takes place.

The screenplay by Craig Mazin, who takes a break from the drama of Chernobyl and The Last of Us to return to his comedic roots, transfers the literary material to a tone suitable for all audiences, but the gags are just as millimeter-precise in the sequences where the sheep walk alone as when they interact with the illustrious faces of Emma Thompson, Hugh Jackman, and Nicholas Braun, who after embodying Cousin Greg from Succession once again sublimates stupidity in the skin of a clumsy police officer.

[Check out the screenings in Catalan version at this link]