Some franchises chase billion-dollar grosses. Shaun the Sheep chases a clean critics chart, and by most accounts the sheep keep winning. The Rotten Tomatoes score for the new threequel just landed, and per the report it puts Aardman's stop-motion flock on a rare streak, the kind of critical consistency you almost never see in family animation.

Per the report over at MSN, the new movie's score is what puts the franchise in rare company. I won't quote you exact percentages here, because I can't verify the live numbers on every entry, and I'd rather be careful than precise-sounding. What I can tell you is that a streak like this, sustained across a franchise whose lead character communicates entirely through bleats and expressive silences, just about never happens.

That last part is what I keep coming back to. These movies are essentially silent comedies. No celebrity voice cast padding the poster, no pop-culture gag quota, just careful stop-motion craft and visual comedy that leans on Buster Keaton more than whatever's trending. Aardman has been doing it since Wallace and Gromit, and the discipline shows. Every frame is handmade, every gag is blocked like a stunt, and somehow it never feels like homework.

A rare streak matters here for a specific reason. Family animation is where critical consensus usually goes to get muddy. For every Spider-Verse there are five sequels coasting on brand recognition, and critics can smell the coasting. Shaun the Sheep doesn't coast. The films are short, tight, weirdly moving, and made with a level of care that reads on screen within about ten seconds. Whatever the exact numbers say, the consistency isn't luck.

Will the new one pack theaters like the season's biggest blockbusters? No, and it doesn't need to. This is a franchise built on long-tail love: parents put it on, kids absorb it, and ten years later those kids are college students showing Farmageddon to their roommates like it's a secret. Aardman makes films for the shelf, not just the opening weekend.

If you've never actually sat down with one of these, this is your excuse. Start with the original, keep Farmageddon for a rainy Sunday, save the threequel for when you want proof that you don't need a single spoken word to be funny. I've said before that I'll watch almost anything if it's made with real care, and this franchise might be the purest example of that going.