Ewe need to see this delightful whodunit.

The title of this family whodunit is named “The Sheep Detectives,” but it might as well as be labeled “A Hugh Jackson Movie With the Voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Bryan Cranston.” Now, I would be sold in a heartbeat.

This movie plays almost like a cross between “Shaun the Sheep,” “Babe,” and “Knives Out,” as we follow some sheep who must play detective. Hence the title: “The Sheep Detectives.” And it might sound like a silly movie, but it’s silly for the right reasons and knows how to be delightful and insightful.

Based on Leonie Swann’s book with the screenplay by Craig Mazin, Jackman plays a shepherd named George Hardy, who is more of sheep person than a people person. When it comes to his sheep, he treats them like his own children. Every night, he reads to them murder mysteries, which he likes to pretend they understand. But they understand pretty well with the smartest sheep Lily (voiced by Louis-Dreyfus) correctly guessing the true culprit.

One day when George is found dead, Lily finds out she’s now in a real life murder mystery and knows the rules, including the motives, the suspects, and the new additions to the case. We have a rival farmer (Cole Tosin), a butcher (Conleth Hill), an inn keeper (Hong Chau), the local priest (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith), the town’s only bumbling cop Tim (Nicholas Braun), George’s lawyer (Emma Thompson), his estranged American daughter Rebecca (Molly Gordon), and the would-be reporter Elliot Matthew’s (Nicholas Galitzine). Any one of them could be the true culprit.

Lily’s fellow sheep incudes the cynical and lonely black ram Sebastian (voiced by Cranston with some “Isle of Dogs” reminiscence), the memorious Mopple (voiced by Chris O’Dowd), the head bumping ram twins Reggie and Ronnie (voiced by Brett Goldstein), the old timer Sir Richfield (voiced by none other than Sir Patrick Stewart), the white sheep Cloud (voiced by Regina Hall), the long haired Wool-Eyes (voiced by Rhys Darby), and the curious lam Zora (voiced by Bella Ramsey). And only Mopple and Sebastian are by her side on the case, and even without the hopping technology of “Hoppers,” they’re quite clever.

I saw this movie last Friday and the same day I was given a look at “Animal Farm,” and I think the sheep whodunit is the one families should be seeing. It doesn’t go for the obligatory livestock flatulence jokes or bad farm puns (in fact, the chicken crossing the road actually works here), but chooses to speak to different levels of the target audience: the parents who love murder mysteries and the kids who need some whimsy and positive messages in their lives.

“The Sheep Detectives” is a little long, but it has more appeal to the genre and the characters than “Animal Farm” or “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.” It likes to give these sheep positives messages about losing a loved one, and apparently they think that sheep can’t die but turn into clouds (funny, I was thinking of the “Johnny Appleseed” segment of “Melody Time” suggesting the clouds were apple blossoms) and believe that forgetting bad things will automatically work on the count of three. 3 2 1. What were we talking about?

The human actors are charming, especially Jackman, Galitzine, Gordon, and Braun, and the voice actors are exuberant, especially Louis-Dreyfus, Cranston, and O’Dowd. In fact, there’s a certain kind of “Paddington” spirit in them that makes them quite appealing. I can’t believe it’s been six years since I saw one of the worst family films of the CGI animal and live action human hybrid genre “Dolittle.” And we have been trying to avoid another disaster like that ever since. But “The Sheep Detectives” is far from a disaster.

It was directed by Kyle Balda, who worked on the animation special effects for movies like “The Mask” and “Stuart Little 2,” and directed Illumination animated features like “The Lorax” and “Despicable Me 3.” Making his live action directorial debut, he knows how the use the actors, special effects, and story. And he trusts that the target audience will enjoy it on different levels. In fact, this is one of the best family films of the year. Sorry about this, Mario and Luigi.

In Theaters Next Week