Early Man

Early Man is playing at Showcase Cinema de Luxe in the Westquay shopping centre from Tuesday 25 August through to Saturday 29 August. It's the latest feature-length film from Aardman Animations, and it's directed by Nick Park, who returns to the director's chair after his Academy Award-winning Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

The voice cast is a big part of the draw here. Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston lead the way, with Timothy Spall, Miriam Margolyes, Richard Ayoade and Rob Brydon filling out the rest of the ensemble. It's a proper Aardman production, with the studio's signature stop-motion style on full display.

Set at the dawn of time, the story follows Dug, a plucky caveman who teams up with his new pal Goona and his pet sidekick Hognob to unite his tribe against Lord Nooth and his Bronze Age followers. It's a classic Aardman setup: a small, scrappy group taking on a larger force, with plenty of the studio's trademark humour along the way. The film adds a new stable of lovable cavemen and women to the Aardman roster, sitting alongside the sheep, chickens and madcap inventors the studio is known for, and of course the canine sidekicks that always seem to find their way in.

It's been a long time in the making. Park outlined the project as far back as 2007, and it's been in production since 2015, so it's a project he's lived with for years. It's running at Showcase Cinema de Luxe in Westquay from 25 August to 29 August, so you've got a few days to catch it if you're around Southampton.