SHOULD a grown man be as exponentially excited as I am by the prospect of a new Shaun the Sheep film? So splendid was the first that I think the answer can only be yes.

Even the title of this sequel - to a film spun from a television series, which was itself a spin off from Nick Park’s glorious golden age of Wallace and Gromit - fills me with joy. It’s Farmagedon. How clever, how funny, how thoroughly pure!

As before, Farmgedon tells its tale solely in percussion. There’s no speech, with plasticine motion and Justin Fletcher supplied baas, sufficing as expression. Part two, however, has a somewhat more sophisticated plot than one. Whereas The Shaun the Sheep Movie simply followed the antics of sheep in the city, Farmageddon opens to the local arrival of an alien called Lu-La and rolls with the attempts of Men In Black styled baddies to bring her in.

Directed by Will Becher and Richard Phelan, Farmagaddon is a slapstick triumph. A laugh a minute gag rate should transcend generations to please all from the very young to the more mature. The genius of it all is that a lack of dialogue ensures easy global translatability for Aardman. The first film bagged a worldwide box office total of over $100m. This one should have no trouble matching it.

Also out this week, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil sees Angelina Jolie once more don the horns of Sleeping Beauty’s iconic villainess.

Mistress of Evil continues Maleficent’s exploration of alternative perspectives on the classic story, with the antihero once again pitted against human characters in a conflict that is not so black and white as good versus bad.

Five years have passed from the first film. When Prince Philip (Harris Dickinson) proposes to Aurora (Elle Fanning), Maleficent is enraged. Unbeknownst to all, Phillip’s mother, Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), plans to use the wedding to divide humans and fairies forever. As war looms, battle lines are drawn and a happily ever after conclusion pulls all but out of reach.

Though the whiff of convolution reeks strongly throughout the film, Jolie continues to impress. It’s a part she was born to play and she nails it. Fanning too is strong in a wet role, whilst Pfeiffer is evidently having a whale of a time as the world’s worst mother-in-law.