Delightfully animated 'Early Man' falls prey to lack of originality

“Early Man” - ★ ★ ½

Pixar has its “Cars.”

Now Aardman Animations has its “Early Man.”

Both movies come from innovative, world-class filmmaking institutions known for their cutting-edge technology, comic ingenuity and masterful storytelling skills.

So when they produce relatively mediocre, commercially safe projects like “Cars” and “Early Man,” it's time for some mild disappointment.

Aardman's stop-motion wizard Nick Park directs “Early Man” almost three decades after he created the first Wallace and Gromit comedy “A Grand Day Out.”

Wisely, Park preserves the old-school, handcrafted look of the Clay-mation process, down to the fingerprints embedded on the characters.

But the movie also traffics in seen-it-before cartoony cliches (two characters run into each other and fall down!). Then it passes up an opportunity to satirically skewer Europe's obsession with the sport of soccer - uh, football.

In prehistoric times, a meteor strikes the earth, wiping out much of its life-forms. (An indestructible cockroach watching this would be funny enough, but the bug whipping out sunglasses? Inspired.)

The cooling meteor turns out to be a soccerball-shaped orb so hot that cave men can't carry it, so they kick it around.

Generations later, the Stone Age cave men have forgotten their soccer legacy.

Caveguy Dug (voiced by Eddie Redmayne) and his faithful, boar-like companion Hognob, belong to a tribe of inept, rabbit hunters ruled by Timothy Spall's ancient chief. (He's a whopping 32!)

Their world receives another shock when capitalistic Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston), a villainous, Bronze Age bureaucrat from a nearby kingdom, invades their valley and kicks the cave men out.

Dug realizes the only way to get their land back is to challenge Lord Nooth's football players to an ultimate soccer match - winner take all.

But Dug's clumsy fellow hunters will be up against Nooth's seasoned soccer superstars whose long locks of blond hair shimmer and float in slow-motion wind shots.

Good thing the cave guys have Goona (Maisie Williams), a tough, optimistic athlete who whips the bumbling boys into shape.

“Early Man” bears the markings of a marketable movie designed by a committee. The story offers lots of soccer action, cartoon antics, doofus “old” people, an independent woman who can't accept society's contained view of females and a laundry list of familiar, family-friendly bromides about working together for a common cause and never giving up on dreams.

Poor Dug barely possesses a personality, or a dramatic arc - so why isn't Goona the lead character? The generic caveguys are barely distinguishable from one another. And what's with the piglike snouts?

Still, “Early Man” occasionally pulls out a few classic Aardman sight gags and puns. To trim whiskers, the chief uses a large beetle's vibrating pincers as a nonelectric shaver. The entire story has been set in the “Neo-Pleistocene Era” (as in Plasticine modeling clay?).

Kids, of course, will be mesmerized by the delightfully crude stop-motion (aided now by computer animation so subtle, we hardly take notice of it) and the Saturday morning cartoon high jinks.

But from the company that gave us innovative, funny films such as “Chicken Run,” “Shaun the Sheep” and “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” don't you think “Early Man” would aspire to something better than a “Flintstones” feature with a makeover?

<b>Starring:</b> Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall, Miriam Margolyes

<b>Directed by:</b> Nick Park

<b>Other:</b> A Lionsgate Films release. Rated PG. 89 minutes