Early Man
Detailed parental analysis
Early Man is a light-hearted adventure comedy driven by absurd humour and infectious energy. The plot follows a small Stone Age tribe forced to challenge a Bronze Age civilisation in a football match to reclaim their lands. The film primarily targets children aged 5 to 10, with enough winks to parents to hold their attention.
Underlying Values
The narrative is built on a clear opposition between a united community and an authoritarian, greedy power. Collective victory takes precedence over any individual achievement: characters systematically fail when acting alone and succeed only by relying on one another. The film also values the courage to resist a more powerful opponent, without ever glorifying violence or domination. These messages are conveyed with lightness but consistently throughout the story, making it a good starting point for discussing cooperation and injustice with a child.
Violence
Violence is omnipresent but entirely slapstick: characters hurled against posts, crushed under rocks, attacked by a giant duck. Nothing is realistic or bloody, and the register remains that of classic physical comedy. A scene featuring a decapitated puppet is treated in the same burlesque tone. One character is threatened with being killed slowly, a formulation that may surprise in a children's film but which has no graphic follow-through. For children under 5, the frequency of falls and impacts may be stimulating; beyond that age, the clearly comic tone defuses any real concern.
Language
The language remains broadly mild. There is one instance of 'crap', a few uses of 'idiot', 'stupid' and 'losers', as well as 'screw' and 'heck'. Nothing genuinely crude or aggressive in register. The potty humour includes flatulence and a joke about blows to sensitive areas, in the tradition of British slapstick. These elements are incidental for parents but may trigger fits of giggles in 6 to 9 year olds.
Sex and Nudity
Stone Age characters wear minimal clothing in keeping with conventional representations of prehistory: bare chests, visible buttocks. One scene briefly shows a male character naked on a football pitch, his genitals covered by a flag. The nudity is treated comically and without any sexual connotation. It is not a genuine cause for concern, but parents of very young children may anticipate the question.
Social Themes
The film deploys a readable metaphor about imperialism and the domination of a technologically advanced civilisation over a more primitive community. The tribe is driven from its lands by force, reduced to working in mines, and must fight within a framework imposed by the dominant power in order to hope to recover what belongs to it. These themes are treated with humour and without didactic heaviness, but they offer a natural opening for discussing justice, power and resistance with a child.
Strengths
The film displays an effective sense of comic timing, with well-constructed visual gags and absurd humour that works on multiple levels. The writing skilfully plays with anachronisms and cultural mismatches, particularly around football as a social institution. The narrative structure is simple but solid, and the film never betrays its characters: each has a role in the collective victory, which gives real coherence to the story's moral. For school-age children, it is a film that watches easily and that one can discuss afterwards.
Age recommendation and discussion points
The film is suitable from age 5 for children comfortable with slapstick and potty humour; fully relaxed viewing sits rather from age 6 to 7 onwards. Two angles of discussion are worth pursuing after viewing: why Dug and his tribe can only win together, never alone, and what this says about the value of the group when facing a stronger opponent; and how the film represents those who hold power and those who are deprived of it, to begin a first reflection on justice and injustice.
Synopsis
Dug, along with his sidekick Hognob, unite a cavemen tribe to save their hidden valley from being spoiled and, all together as a team, to face the menace of a mysterious and mighty enemy, on the turf of an ancient and sacred sport.
About this title
- Format
- Feature film
- Year
- 2018
- Runtime
- 1h 29m
- Countries
- United Kingdom, France
- Original language
- EN
- Studios
- StudioCanal, Aardman
Content barometer
- Violence2/5Moderate
- Fear1/5Mild
- Sexuality1/5Allusions
- Language1/5Mild
- Narrative complexity1/5Accessible
- Adult themes0/5None
Watch-outs
- Violence
Values conveyed
- Courage
- Friendship
- Perseverance
- teamwork
- equality