Sheep & Wolves

There's a lot to like about this movie. The animation is gorgeous. The voice acting is competent. I wasn't too into the story though but if you don't think too deeply about it, it's not a bad movie for kids.

Unfortunately I'm not a kid. So the themes and issues with it kinda left me hovering in the middle. Let me explain.

On the surface it's one of those feel good movies. You have a group of wolves, a group of sheep and through wacky hijinks the wolf wanting to be the alpha gets turned into a sheep. He learns about them, learns to care about them and in the end convinces his pack that the sheep should be their friends and not their dinner. And that's fine if that's what you want to take away from it. It's colorful. It looks nice. It's got a good message of working together and it can be something the kids can enjoy.

But I don't get it. The're made partially human in the sense that they're anthro to the point where the females have human curves to them and long hair. Sure, it's not the first cartoon to do that. Yes the animals live in villages with houses and use tools. But they also run on all fours. Yet also they stand on their hind legs and use their front paws as hands. There's no real consistency to them or their design. It's like they took two ideas and mashed them together.

To see this done right, I really suggest Zootopia as I felt this was a little too uneven.