Until Aladdin, big movie stars weren’t normally used as voice actors for animated features, and, in fact, Robin Williams’ Genie set a very high bar that few big names have been able to reach, mainly because of his brilliant ad libs, which the animation crew had to work around. We’ve now come to expect familiar voices coming out of cartoon characters to the point where it’s often the main marketing hook, thus relegating real voice actors—meaning people who make a living by doing voiceovers only—to lesser work. The animation in The Sheep Detectives is all CGI, meaning the voice actors have to work against real actors like Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson, a task that animation voice actors of the past didn’t have to contend with, so, in a sense, having real world acting chops is necessary, though I’m not sure the synergy works as well as it’s supposed to in this case. For one thing, the animated sheep for whom the voice actors voice never speak in human language with their nominally human interlocutors. They simply bleat, because the movie is one of those fantasies where the animals only talk in sentences with one another.

And the fantasy extends to the setting, which is a kind of idealized rural village that’s 3 parts English heath and two parts New Zealand highland, with a liberal mix of Commonwealth and American accents to further confuse the situation. Here, the bohemian shepherd George Hardy (Jackman) lives out of a very American-looking silver trailer while tending in a hands-on way his loyal flock, which he profits from only through their wool (lovingly shorn, as the movie is careful to point out) and not their meat. They’re a happy, diverse lot, though there does seem to be a pecking order, with respectable older male types voiced by Bryan Cranston and Patric Stewart lording it over the females (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, etc.) and the iconoclasts (Chris O’Dowd). As the title so plainly lets on, these sheep are called upon to solve a mystery, a task they are suited to because George puts them to sleep every night by reading classic detective fiction to them. So when a murder occurs in the village, the sheep hop to it in a more organized manner than the bumbling humans, who include the lawyer for the deceased (Thompson), the constantly flummoxed head of the local constabulary (Nicholas Braun), an inexplicably aggrieved postmistress (Hong Chau), and the local butcher (Conleth Hill), whose interest in the sheep is hardly a mystery.

Director Kyle Balda brings the same jaunty mood to the comic component of The Sheep Detectives that made his Despicable Me series so successful, with most of the supporting sheep fulfilling the slapstick prerogatives that catapulted the Minions to their own separate superstardom. It helps also that, thanks to the voice actors, the sheep themselves have distinctive qualities: as Louis-Dreyfus’s character so forcefully puts it, “I refuse to be a sheep!” However, the mystery aspect of the story, which is adapted from a bestseller by German author Leonie Swann, is hardly worth pondering. It’s a rickety scaffold that’s merely designed to support the various physical comedy set pieces. Kids of a certain age and their parents high on edibles will best appreciate this kind of entertainment, which has become so laser targeted as to comprise a genre all its own.

The mystery that propels the plot of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, the third movie in the Four Horsemen magician series, isn’t that interesting either, though that’s mainly because the plot itself is a little too complicated for this kind of lightweight heist flick. The four big magicians, J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritte (Woody Harrelson), Jack (Dave Franco), and Henley (Isla Fisher) are joined this time by a trio of young punks who mean to grab their title as the world greatest illusionists, and, of course, get their asses handed to them.

All seven eventually join up to steal a diamond from the CEO of a South African mining company (Rosamund Pike) who is pegged as evil for the way she runs her company and exploits her workers, which is perfectly believable, but in the realm of the story the robbery, like the murder in The Sheep Detectives, is just an end to various means, which is the magic tricks the good guys use to divert the attention of the bad guys, and as with all magic tricks in movies, it’s hard to be impressed since editing and special effects are obviously being utilized. In the end, the main drama is how effectively the vets will show up the young upstarts, and everyone gets what they deserve, illusions be damned. 

The Sheep Detectives, in Japanese subtitled and Japanese dubbed versions, now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t now playing in Tokyo at Marunouchi Piccadilly (050-6875-0075), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011). 

The Sheep Detectives home page in Japanese

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t home page in Japanese

The Sheep Detectives photo (c) 2026 CTMG

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t photo (c) 2026 Lions Gate Ent. Inc.