Truly Dreadful Film

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

This little gem has its 20th birthday this year and man has it aged fine. While Wallace serves mostly as a tool (in the truest sense of the word), it's all about the face-off between Gromit and a criminal mastermind. It starts off with Gromit receiving the most curious birthday gift: a pair of remote-controlled mechanical trousers to take him out for a walk, so Wallace can stay at home and do whatever he likes. (Whose birthday is it anyway???) Neither particularly interested in the trousers, nor in being kept on a leash, Gromit just enjoys the day out. Upon return home, he finds Wallace having rented a room to a penguin named Feathers McGraw. This one quickly expresses much more interest in the new trousers than the actual presentee.Right when this film approaches the end and you feel you've never seen crime portrayed better in animation (the chicken comb disguise idea is as simple as it's genius), Park includes a great train chase scene that ought to serve as a lesson to every animator on how to use the western genre in animation. The score is unspectacular, but works wonders from start to finish and it was particularly entertaining to see Gromit metaphorically as Wallace's aged wife during the knitting and rolling pin scenes. My favorite scene that made me break into laughter was the moment Wallace wakes up at the museum and keeps rambling about how he's a respectable citizen. Here it was particularly nice to see him screaming not for his canine pal and not for his feathered "friend", with whom he bonded increasingly early on on Gromit's expense.This film is the most frequently and one of the highest rated IMDb short films for good reason. As of now, it's my favorite W&G piece (mainly because of one of the finest villain performances in animation history) and everybody should see it.

Again brilliantly animated with all the little subtle touches that make Aardman films so great! Of course Peter Sallis does his usual excellent job of voicing Wallace. The plot is more complicated than the first film and it shows the ambition of the studio to progress. Some of the ideas are really crazy, but they work so well in this medium. For me, not quite as good as 'A Grand Day Out', but a very close second… HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.My Score: 9.2/10IMDb Score: 8.5/10 (based on 27,036 votes at the time of going to press).Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 100/100 (based on 25 reviews counted at the time of going to press).Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 89/100 (based on 19,727 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

Wallace and Grommit: The Wrong Trousers: The Good, the Bad, and the UglyWallace and Grommit make a great team when they star in Nick Park's Claymation short The Wrong Trousers. But, as in most movies, this one has the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.The Good: A great plot. A pair of techno-trousers. A sinister penguin. A diamond robbery. An amazing train chase scene. And, of course, cheese. Every one of these things alone makes this short definitely worthy of the 1993 Academy Award for the Best Animated Short. The Bad: Why do the techno-trousers walk away at the end of the movie? Is it because Feathers McGraw got away? Do the wrong trousers have another evil controller? The Ugly: There were three mistakes that I caught while watching the movie. The first was when Feathers is making Grommit wait for the bathroom. Wallace passes Grommit fully dressed. The next scene shows Wallace in a bathrobe—not dressed in everyday clothes like he was a few seconds earlier. The next shows Grommit when he cut out a piece of cardboard to spy on Feathers McGraw. We don't see that little piece when we should. The last is right before the chase scene. Grommit is dangling from a light fixture with a light bulb in it, which Feathers shoots down. Next it shows Grommit with the fixture on his head. No crash of the bulb.Overall, it is a movie worth watching—great for kids and adults alike.

There's no use prevaricating about the bush, 'Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers (1993)' is a whole heap of fun! Having not seen the film in years, I'd almost forgotten that it was so uproariously entertaining. It was 'Creature Comforts (1989)' that took home the Oscar in 1991, but Nick Park instead planned a sequel to 'A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit (1989),' a short film that, in my estimation, showed far more promise. This next effort sees the pair with their feet firmly on terra firma, but in an adventure that is no less wacky than the last. Despite economic woes, Wallace has built a impressive contraption for Gromit's birthday – a pair of mechanical trousers. To offset his financial losses, Wallace opens up his home to lodgers, attracting the business of a creepy and silent penguin named Feathers McGraw. The sinister flightless avian soon sets about systematically severing the immortal bond between master and pet, in preparation for a devilishly cunning heist scheme.Nick Park's films are held in reverence by the animation community, and with good cause. Rarely before had the claymation medium been utilised to create such rich animated characters; even previous successes like 'Closed Mondays (1974)' couldn't evade the fact that they were produced using shifting masses of clay. 'The Wrong Trousers' boasts but three characters – only one of which can speak – and yet the relationship between the three is superbly authentic. Maybe it's the personal touch of recognising the animators' thumb-prints on every character, but somehow Park manages to capture every nuance of their behaviour, every tiny inflection of emotion. In half an hour, Gromit doesn't utter a single word, and yet he communicates his sadness, anger and excitement through an affectionate glance or downcast eye. Likewise, the sinister Feathers McGraw attains creepiness precisely through his silence. That he doesn't speak keeps his motives veiled in secrecy, and those beady, ominous eyes are probably enough to give young children nightmares.Of course, most people love 'The Wrong Trousers' for its humour, and there's plenty of it. That sparkling British humour is truly allowed to shine, and the gentle voice-acting of Peter Sallis has the sheer sincerity to carry the frequently-offbeat jokes. Whereas 'A Grand Day Out' was a homage of sorts to the science-fiction genre, probably more in line with Georges Méliès than anyone else, this effort is an affectionate satire of the British crime films of the 1950s and 1960s. The evil penguin has the eccentric malevolence of Alec Guinness in 'The Ladykillers (1955),' though without the fondness for articulate speech. The object of the villainous heist scheme resembles the titular jewel in 'The Pink Panther (1964).' With mock seriousness, amateur sleuth Gromit paces his way through the clichés of the genre, culminating in a hilarious madcap locomotive chase along miniature train-tracks, which our hero must lay down as he goes. This sort of impeccable entertainment deserves to run for far longer than thirty minutes.