classicsoncall This was my first Wallace and Gromit film short and by the looks of other reviewers here, it might be I picked the best of the bunch to start with. I thought it entertaining enough but don't think it merits it's high rating on IMDb. What I look for in animated films are the sight gags and clever one liners, so I got a kick out of Gromit reading 'Crime and Punishment' by Fido Dogstoyevsky. Once freed from jail, Gromit takes on the appearance of Snoopy in the cockpit of the Sopwith Camel when he takes to the skies to free the sheep. But to get arrested for killing sheep in the first place, well that's a bit hard to take for a canine cartoon hero. What fascinates me most about the picture is that it's done in Claymation, which requires the utmost patience and precision to make the picture flow so evenly. To be honest, I would not have selected this film to watch on my own, but it appears on an IMDb Top 250 list as I work my way back through the years of collecting the data. I'll also be watching the two earlier W&G selections as well, but for me it's more of a completist exercise to watch and review all the top rated movies. This short convinces me that IMDb ultimately made the right decision to limit their Top 250 to live action and feature length animated movies.

Tommy Nelson Just thinking about stop motion animation makes one think of a slow and tedious process of moving everything in the frame scene by scene. It takes forever (seemingly), and just two years after Wallace and Gromit's last adventure, we get this superbly animated, well thought out short film, that is actually as exciting as many live action adventure pictures. Proof that Nick Park and crew are about quality, because after the success of "the Wrong Trousers" it would be easy to cash in on a less than great installment, but thankfully for us, that's not the case.A mysterious wool shortage has plagued the town where Wallace and Gromit, who are now cleaning windows, live. What lies before this man and dog duo is a love interest, a sheep rustling murderous dog, and a lot of sheep. When thinking of the original three Wallace and Gromit shorts, I've always put this one and the Wrong Trousers nearly on par as perfect shorts, and while I still feel that way, this one falls a little short of their second adventure, and yet this has nothing really wrong with it to make it worse. When you have two perfect shorts, one is going to probably be favored over the other, and the lack of talking and pure clay animated suspense that "Wrong Trousers" produced stands above this equally wonderful, but more grandiose outing. Either way, this is seriously great, and one of the greatest short films out there.The animation has improved greatly since "The Wrong Trousers". The animation is smoother, the sets are more three dimensional and the town in which they live in is given more of a personality, and fingerprints aren't as prominent on the figures. And the animation on the action sequences is superb. The last film gave us the hilarious train sequence, and this one gives us many action sequences, most notably being the motorcycle chase and the oatmeal machine gun shootout which are both spectacular and hilariously implausible. The whole five (or so) minute chase scene in the film is seriously as interesting, well thought out, and action packed as most regular action flicks, and it manages to be so without any violence or explosions. Truly a testament to the writing and animation of this thing.Composer Julian Nott is also a huge part of this film. His music sounds like a mix of suspenseful thriller music, and a German polka...an unlikely combination, but one that fits so perfectly, giving the scenes a playful bounce, along with a "something bad is going to happen" feel. A new addition to the score for this film that wasn't in the previous two was the love theme which is almost a parody of love themes, but one that stands on it's own and also works perfectly in the scenes.Wallace and Gromit represent not just quality animation, but also top notch writing, well thought out jokes and gags, fantastic direction from Nick Park, and proof that animation is not just for kids. Nick Park and the team at Aardman animation can easily be thought of as the Pixar team of England.My rating: **** out of ****. 31 mins. Not rated, but good for the whole family.

Shawn Watson A lone sheep, later named Shaun, escapes from a sheep rustling plot and hides in the home of eccentric inventor Wallace and his long-suffering dog/best pal Gromit. A silent but deadly canine down at the wool shop appears to be the mastermind behind the plot and frames Gromit for the rustling scam. With a little help from Shaun, Wallace must rescue Gromit and catch the real crooks.There are more laughs and jokes in this half-hour short than most feature-length comedies manage in their entire running time. Nearly every frame has some kind of wit or imagination. The world of Wallace and Gromit, much like the stop-motion world of Postman Pat, is an incongruous mix of post-war Northern countryside crossed with sci-fi and a touch of horror. The horror themes would be explored in greater depth with Curse of the Were-Rabbit but it's handled with more care and sly invention here than in most slasher sequels.A fun time. Catch it on its inevitable Xmas Day screening.

Boba_Fett1138 Even though the story is probably less impressive- and overdone when compared to the other Wallace & Gromit shorts, it still probably is my favorite. It's simply such a fine and entertaining movie to watch, not in the least because it has Preston, the evil villain dog in it and a whole bunch of sheep.It's an impressive looking movie, with some surprising big sequences. What I always love about the Wallace & Gromit movies is that they often feature some amazing build-up and shot action sequences and chases in particular. It's often worth the price alone already.This was the second Wallace & Gromit short to win an Oscar for best animated short, which not only proofs the quality and entertainment level of the Wallace & Gromit shorts but shows as well that you don't need a big budget or impressive new techniques to make a brilliant animated movie with. The claymation is impressive as always and has lots of details to it. It must be an incredibly time consuming but also incredibly rewarding process to make a movie like this. Nick Park must surely enjoy it. He's in the claymation business for over 20 years now, together with Peter Lord.This movie takes some chance to add another human character to the movie. All of the previous Wallace & Gromit movies were mostly purely about the strange friendship between the man and dog, in which the dog always seemed like the more clever and rational of the two. This gamble however worked out fine for the movie and the added love-story plot actually adds a lot to the movie. As a matter of fact, after this movie Wallace had many more love-interests in later Wallace & Gromit adventures, such as the big theatrical released "Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" and the latest short "Wallace and Gromit in 'A Matter of Loaf and Death'".It of course are not just the human characters that make this movie but also really the animals. Preston the dog is such a great and evil movie villain. The sheep in this movie also provide the movie with lots of hilarious moments and they are cute looking as well.perhaps my favorite Wallace & Gromit short.9/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/