In the latest engaging claymation from Nick Park, a group of Neanderthals must defend their homeland from their arrogant, bronze-age Euro-trash neighbors … in a kind of slobs-versus-snobs soccer game. Voice talent includes Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Timothy Spall and Rob Brydon.

It’s hard not to be charmed by anything that comes out of Park’s Aardman Animations, and this one is certainly recommendable. But it has to be said that while it’s still smart and funny, judging it by the studio’s own standards of excellence (Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep), it’s merely second-division.

(89 min, from July 6)