{"id":45964,"date":"2026-10-11T11:46:46","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T16:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=45964"},"modified":"2026-10-11T11:46:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T16:46:46","slug":"current-movie-reviews-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/10\/11\/current-movie-reviews-82\/","title":{"rendered":"Current Movie Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Just imagine this balloon flower is a sheep. A really smart sheep. — Mr. AllergicToLawsuits<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom<\/a>\u00a0<\/b><\/i>(2026) is the latest contribution to a collection of animated vignette montages and movies that chronicle the lives of a rather obtuse Farmer, whose name I’ve never picked up on, and his ongoing travails of various sorts; his dog, Bitzer, who is excessively fond of his whistle and hat; and the flock of sheep, as well as other animals, under their care.<\/p>\n

Shaun is the smartest of the sheep, organizing them for such things as visiting the City, doing battle with the Pigs, cropping the grass, and competing in pseudo-Olympic Events. His brilliance is balanced by the flock, who often fail to appreciate his industriousness and insights. This leads to a certain wryness in those tales.<\/p>\n

But …<\/strong> Mossy Bottom<\/strong><\/em> lacks these and other elements from the earlier episodes and tales, and relies on audience knowledge in a world of no guarantees. I’ve seen most of those previous shows and, well, I was disappointed in Mossy Bottom<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

It feels like a checklist movie, where someone (not original creator Nick Park) put together a list of points on which the movie should touch, wrote a script embodying those points with only a superficial regard for the Shaun the Sheep<\/em> mythos, and then made it. The result is a loss of a body of emotional knowledge critical to the story: Shaun’s eternal struggle with the flock’s ambivalence concerning his intelligence, the Farmer’s angst with his lack of female interest, Bitzer’s frantic efforts to keep the Farmer from learning of Shaun; the Pig herd’s struggle to screw over the Sheep.<\/p>\n

The absence of these elements robs the story of a necessary piquancy, the extra sympathy with struggles of the characters with the defining themes.<\/p>\n

All that said, there is<\/em> a lot to like in Mossy Bottom<\/strong><\/em>, from a plot with some satisfying twists to a spot-on rendition of a\u00a0\u00a0veterinarian, if lacking a good, quirky theme of her own.<\/p>\n

But the lack of insight into what makes for a successful Shaun the Sheep<\/em> tale is a significant drag on this tale. Kids may not notice it, but adults who’ve appreciated Shaun since his first appearance will be disappointed in this by-the-numbers<\/em> effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom\u00a0(2026) is the latest contribution to a collection of animated vignette montages and movies that chronicle the lives of a rather obtuse Farmer, whose name I’ve never picked up on, and his ongoing travails of various sorts; his dog, Bitzer, who is excessively \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45964"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46029,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45964\/revisions\/46029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}