Hugh Jackman’s bizarre new film about sheep is his highest-rated yet

Oscar winner Hugh Jackman has hit a new career milestone thanks to his latest movie, which has achieved the highest ranking out of his films so far on Rotten Tomatoes.

And if you think about some of the popular films he’s starred in over his career – from X-Men to Les Misérables to irrepressible The Greatest Showman – that is not a feat to be sniffed at.

Jackman’s new film The Sheep Detectives, a family-friendly mystery that’s been described as a cross between Babe and Knives Out, is now his top-rated film on the review aggregator site.

When the embargo lifted on critics’ opinions earlier this week, the film soared straight to the top of the pile with 96% based on 26 reviews.

As of Friday, with a few more now filed, it’s dropped slightly to 94%.

However, that’s still enough to keep it in joint top place with his 2019 crime drama Bad Education (not to be confused with the British TV series, but just as entertaining – if in a very different way).

Just behind on 93% is, unsurprisingly, Logan, Jackman’s gritty and acclaimed return in 2017 to the role that made him a Hollywood superstar.

Other films near the top of the pile, according to critics, are X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), 2019 animation Missing Link and X2, the first X-Men sequel.

In The Sheep Detectives, Jackman plays shepherd George Hardy, who reads detective novels to his beloved sheep every night (with voices and everything) – little realising they understand.

Following a mysterious incident that disrupts life as the flock knows it though, and the sheep decide they must become the detectives, following clues and investigating human suspects.

The film also stars Emma Thompson, Succession actor Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine and Hong Chau in human roles, alongside the voices of Bryan Cranston, Sir Patrick Stewart, Chris O’Dowd, Bella Ramsey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Ted Lasso’s Brett Goldstein.

Collider dubbed The Sheep Detectives ‘one of the year’s most delightful surprises’ and Time Out admitted it was ‘irrepressibly jolly’.

It was also compared to Midsomer Murders, The Thursday Murder Club and Watership Down while being praised for capturing ‘that sense of whimsy and fun the Babe movies did’.

‘Seriously, a movie about crime-solving animals has more to say about heady topics like bearing witness and the transmission of values than many a prestige indie drama,’ added The Playlist’s critic.

Mashable then promised it was ‘a feel-good movie that’s sure to delight all ages’.

‘The great feelgood trick pulled off by this film is that the murder, involving a character we’ve been encouraged to like and invest in emotionally – much more so than in traditional detective stories – doesn’t get swamped with sadness and shock,’ observed The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw.

‘The film scoots smartly past the death and brings us briskly on to the entertaining business of sheep-oriented crime detection.’

Fans will get the chance to see for themselves soon enough when The Sheep Detectives hits cinemas.

The Sheep Detectives is released in UK cinemas on Friday, May 8. There are special advance screenings in seleect cinemas this Bank Holiday weekend.

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