Leofwine_draca A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH is a Wallace and Gromit adventure without the charm that made the Claymation shorts so endearing in the first place. This is a fast-paced, Hollywood-style adventure packed with in-jokes and scenes copied from anything and everything; the bit that most stood out for me was Gromit's misadventures with the bomb which recall the old BATMAN movie with Adam West.The main plot is a copy of THE WRONG TROUSERS with a less endearing narrative structure and unlikeable characters. The cosy British feel has gone to be replaced with breakneck action, big scenery. mannered caricatures, and set-pieces. Sure, the quality of the stop motion is still very good, but other than keeping Peter Sallis in work, this has very little to recommend it.

StephenBurg The new Wallace and Gromit film isn't as good as the other films. The writing is basically a murder mystery that spoofs everything. The film is about the duo going into a bread industry while a serial killer is killing bakers, who Wallace falls in love with and Gromit falls for her dog. But Gromit begins to suspect her of the murders...Obviously, it's not graphic, but there is a lot of violence. The writing is, as I said before, basically a typical murder mystery that spoofs a lot of movies. The humor is very hit and miss. If you're a Wallace and Gromit fan, then you should pick this one up, but there's no telling if you'll like or not.6/10

MartinHafer This latest Wallace and Gromit short is sure different in some ways from the first short, A GRAND DAY OUT WITH WALLACE AND GROMIT. The first film used simpler technology--mostly because Nick Park had been working on much of the film on his own before he came to work for Aardman. The characters were clearly made of clay (with fingerprints on them) and the sets were much simpler. In contrast, in A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH, the characters look like they were computer generated (I don't think this is true, however) because they were much smoother and they appeared to be using soft poseable plastic dolls. Also, the backgrounds and additional characters are light-years ahead of the first film. All this is to be expected, as the company has grown and learned a lot over the years--as well as picking up several Oscars along the way for their great work.Now this isn't saying that the new film is total perfection. While it is very cute and watchable, it does suffer from two things. Perhaps the earlier films were a bit funnier. In fact, I saw a couple of these older shorts again just a few days ago and I think the humor was a bit brighter and sillier. Another minor problem is that this film reminded me an awful lot of WALLACE AND GROMIT IN A CLOSE SHAVE. Both films featured Wallace falling in love and in both cases, the ladies ended up being very wicked, indeed! In fact, when I first started watching A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH, I automatically assumed that lady was the killer--just like the lady in this previous film was the sheep-napper. And, like in the other film, it's up to Gromit to save the day because Wallace is too big a doofus to realize what is happening...which, by the way, reminds me a lot of WALLACE AND GROMIT AND THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT.So, as you can see, there isn't much new under the sun in this film. However, its handled so well and beautifully that you can still enjoy this rather derivative yet engaging film.UPDATE--2/18/10 I just went to a show of the Oscar-nominated animated shorts. This film was one of the five. However, when compared to the other four films, this was my least favorite as it didn't innovate at all and other Wallace & Gromit films are better. This isn't to say it's a bad film or I hated it--I just can't see it deserving the Oscar. My prediction is that LOGORAMA will win, though my very favorite is the somewhat morbid THE OLD LADY AND THE REAPER. Stay tuned in March to see if I am correct.

davideo-2 STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Wallace and Gromit have decided to set up their own baking business. One day, Wallace nearly has a traffic accident with the woman who used to be the 'bake-o-lite' girl. They warm to each other and romance starts to blossom-but Gromit, wary as ever (what with past experience!) suspects she's trouble, and what with the spate of serial killings involving local bakers that's been going on lately, maybe he's onto something.After the success of 2005's film version The Curse of the Were Rabbit, Nick Park's plasticine heroes have become popular again and got enough publicity for a timely new episode last Christmas, that for one reason or another I didn't get to see all the way through. But now I have, and while the technical animation never ceases to impress me, it's now becoming quite clear that in my mind, Park'll never make as great an episode as The Wrong Trousers.The serial killing theme of this new story might have been a bit too dark and adult to feature in a family film, but one of the trademarks of the franchise, the cheesy puns, are in abundance, from vinyl records Gromit owns by artists like Doggy Osmond and McFlea (as well as The Hound of Music!), to other clever (but not very subtle!) touches like advertisements for flights by Cheesy Jet. The stories in most of the short films revolve around Wallace warming to someone (or something) he's just met and Gromit suspecting (and being proved right!) that they're up to no good, and this is no exception but most of it is carried off with such technical expertise it's a minor quibble.There's nothing really wrong here, it's just that nothing has (and I doubt ever will) live up to the standard of The Wrong Trousers for me. ***