One of the problems of the success of Aardman studios is that the claymation bar got lowered considerably. Don’t get me wrong; Aardman contains professionals; they do their job. However, Aardman animation is an acquired taste. Hence, now pretty much anybody with a stop-motion camera, an English-accent, and some refrigerator art thinks they can create a children’s classic. In today’s film, I swear to you, the hero is –from what I can tell- a talking lint ball. You’re gonna think I’m making this up, and I wish I were, but our character in Strike is mole that looks like a ball of lint. I suppose he got off easy; his mom looks like untapped cigarette ash.
Like most saps in the UK, Mungo Morrison (voice of Lizzie Waterworth) has dreams of becoming a soccer star. His talents are impressive (apparently), but he has two major drawbacks to the dream –the first is he’s a mole and the second is that like many blue collar sons in blue collar towns, he is destined for a blue collar future. In fact, this is the very day he is to be introduced to profession of mining, so common in his home of Diggington. Oh, you poor bastard. Coal mines suck. What? This is a gold mine? You’re kidding, right? And they haven’t struck gold in five (5) years? How do they earn any money? No seriously. I want to know. The anthropomorphized denizens of Diggington rely on a gold mine that doesn’t produce gold. At some point, you’re gonna run out of stuff, right?
Speaking of digging for gold and coming up empty, Mungo can’t seem to tell his father that he wants to run off to the circus become a guitar legend be the next Pelé. Yeah, that’s equally as likely to yield a long and happy life. But hey, dad heads up the “gold” mine, so it’s not like Mungo’s dream is any different. The weird part is we never see Mungo play soccer until an hour in, so until that time his talent for the sport is about on par with that of staged youtube theatrics – which would be great if that’s how sports were played, but the NBA finals are rarely decided by an out-of-shape physicist making a shot from the rafters.
In fact, there are very few sports in existence in which one earns a trial with a national team based solely on demonstrable skill 
set; that’s not how sports work.
But lack of realism isn’t what makes this mole a dog. The animation is awful; the plot is predictable to the letter and the villains are a combination of the three bosses from Fantastic Mr. Fox and the Russian villains from “Rocky & Bullwinkle.” Films like this depend loads of goofy characters and genuinely humorous moments. Strike will sooner find gold than make you laugh out loud. I suppose I enjoyed the “Wild Cup” soccer tournament. Get it? I also enjoyed the idea of an elephant goal keeper; it reminded me of the defense my brother used to use in table hockey where he’d permanently use three “men” to cover 90% of the goal and dare me to find the opening; I rarely did. But is the summoning of a random childhood memory enough to stamp “jolly good” on this show? Hardly.
Oh, and I hate to spoil things, but as you parents you should know two specific plot points: Mungo’s father dies in a mine accident halfway through … which is worse than Bambi when you think about it. Secondly, when Mungo is given a choice of following his soccer dream or saving his home town, his mother encourages him to leave – which at the moment is exactly the wrong thing to do. At that point, there’s no way this film gets any love; you’d have to be blind as a mole to imagine otherwise.
Mungo the Mole has skills on display
But to use them, many a creature must sway
Can he alter his life journey
And get to the tourney?
Looks like a bumper crop of cliché
Not Rated, 100 Minutes
Director: Trevor Hardy (not the “Beast of Manchester”)
Writer: Neil James
Genre: Whatever you get when you decide to animate the story your nine-year-old wrote
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Lint people
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Genuine soccer fans
