"The Sheep Detectives" key art.

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Hugh Jackman has a big winner on his hands with the new family comedy The Sheep Detectives, according to Rotten Tomatoes critics.

A live-action and CGI animated hybrid, The Sheep Detectives plays in Thursday previews before opening in theaters nationwide on Friday. The film stars Jackman as George, a shepherd who has the unusual habit of reading whodunit murder mysteries to his sheep every night, unaware they are actually listening. As such, when George turns up dead one morning under mysterious circumstances, his flock is determined to investigate and solve the crime.

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Directed by Kyle Balda, The Sheep Detectives also stars Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Tosin Cole and Hong Chau, as well as the voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, Brett Goldstein, Rhys Darby and Emma Thompson.

As of Thursday, The Sheep Detectives has earned a 97% “fresh” critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer based on 68 reviews. RT’s Critics Consensus, Audience Summary and Popcornmeter score are still pending.

What Are Individual Critics Saying About ‘The Sheep Detectives’?

Guy Lodge of Variety is among the top critics on RT who gives The Sheep Detectives a “fresh” score. Lodge writes in his RT review summary, “There’s wisdom amid the silliness, as the story gently makes a case for the necessity of grief, mindfulness and mortal awareness ... That’s more than you might expect from a film called The Sheep Detectives.”

Tim Grierson of AV Club also praises the film in his “fresh” review on RT, writing, “The Sheep Detectives evokes the sunny spirit of classics like Babe while teaching important lessons about death and community. And it contains a wonderful Julia Louis-Dreyfus performance as a smart sheep who discovers she’s got a lot to learn.”

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Nell Minnow of RogerEbert.com also gives The Sheep Detectives a “fresh” score on RT, writing, “It is accessible enough for younger viewers without condescending to them, yet complex enough to engage an adult audience.

Clarisse Loughrey of the Independent (U.K.) awards The Sheep Detectives a “fresh” score, even though she has some reservations. Loughrey writes in her RT review summary, “It’s a bit much, to be frank. But at the time, the all-hands-aboard desire to take so absurd a premise and insist it be about something offers its Midsomer Murders-lite world a sense of weight and substance. The melodrama helps land the comedy.”

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As of the publication of this article, no top critics on RT have given The Sheep Detectives a “rotten” score. However, a pair of critics from the full roster of critics reviewing the film on RT have given it a “rotten” score, including Robeto Tyler Ortiz of Geek Vibes Nation. Ortiz writes in his RT review summary, “The Sheep Detectives feels like a solid idea that never quite develops into something memorable.”

Katie Smith-Wong of Flick Feast isn’t a fan of the film either, writing in her “rotten” RT review summary, “Audiences will want to watch The Sheep Detectives because of the cute animals and the star-filled cast. Unfortunately, the combination of its stale execution and over-reliance on its woolly stars causes the film to stumble out of the barn.”

Rated PG, The Sheep Detectives plays in preview screenings on Thursday before opening in theaters nationwide on Friday.

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