Wallace and Gromit [The Shorts] (1993)

1993, Aardman Animations. Directed by Nick Park. Animated.

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The Incredible Adventures of Wallace and Gromit (DVD)

The Incredible Adventures of Wallace and Gromit (VHS)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

This wildly entertaining 2001 release is actually a compilation of Chicken Run co-creator Nick Park’s three hilarious, brilliant Claymation shorts featuring dotty, cheese-loving English inventor Wallace and his loyal but dubious dog Gromit. Jam-packed with dazzlingly inventive sight gags and quintessentially eccentric British humor, these delightful little gems deserve a place on every film lover’s shelf.

First is "A Grand Day Out," the slightest and least impressive of the three, with Park focused on developing his technique while working a feather-light story about a trip to the moon. Next is the series’ high point, "The Wrong Trousers," an astonishingly inventive sci-fi thriller spoof pitting our heroes against a fiendishly clever criminal mastermind who is also a master of disguise. Last is the almost equally good "A Close Shave," a comic tale of romance and noir-like mystery involving a sheep-rustling operation.

What makes Park’s little masterpieces (especially the Oscar-winning latter two) so rewarding for film lovers is the way Park lovingly evokes whole genres and cinematic conventions through attention to every element of the moviemaking process — lighting and shadow, score, art direction, even pacing and timing. The stop-motion technique, involving real objects in real space under real lighting, has a dimensionality and a solidness still lacking in even the most sophisticated Toy Story computer animation.

Buy at Amazon.com

The Incredible Adventures of Wallace and Gromit (DVD)

The Incredible Adventures of Wallace and Gromit (VHS)

Some comic menace.