Wallace & Gromit in Three Amazing Adventures - NR
Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this is a compilation of three shorts: A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, and A Close Shave. Preschoolers will enjoy lovable-looking Wallace and Gromit, but may find certain scenes too scary. Grammar school kids will be riveted by the special effects and will replay their favorite scenes over and over again. Tweens, teens, and adults appreciate the brilliant humor, special effects, and the action-adventure sequences.
Families can talk about the role of technology in their lives, or use the series as a way to encourage creative children to come up with their own inventions or outlandish stories.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Nancy Warren
Inventor and proper Englishman Wallace and his silent and wise dog Gromit brave a moon appliance, mechanical trousers, and a robotic dog in this trilogy of Nick Park's award-winning shorts. Intricate claymation nicely balances the highly imaginative and hilarious situations. The plots are intricate and suspenseful, the characters are comical, and the claymation is as detailed as it is whimsical. There's something for everyone to enjoy here.In A Grand Day Out, inventor Wallace and his dog Gromit build a spaceship so they can travel to the moon for the ultimate "Cheese Holiday." On the moon they cross paths with a stove-like robot, who becomes enraged when he sees them casually cutting up the moon to eat on crackers.
In The Wrong Trousers, Gromit receives a leash and mechanical trousers that can walk him without Wallace. Wallace's generous, if unappreciated, birthday present sets him back, so he rents a room to a penguin. The penguin gains Wallace's trust, then rewires the trousers to commit a jewel heist.
In A Close Shave, window washers Wallace and Gromit meet the dazzling Wendolene, and note that, despite a wool shortage, her shop is unusually full of wool. Wendolene's evil dog Preston frames Gromit for recent sheep murders, and Wallace, Gromit, and new friend Shorn must scurry to outwit Preston and his "mutton-o-matic" dog food machine.
Playing on themes (and theme music) from 1940s sci-fi thrillers, action-adventures, and noir classics, WALLACE AND GROMIT IN THREE AMAZING ADVENTURES appeals to everyone from preschoolers to seniors. Winner of United States and British Academy Awards, Nick Park has received numerous technical and creative kudos for his crazy claymation escapades.
All three shorts offer the comic specter of technology gone horribly and hilariously wrong, as Wallace's own faulty and complicated inventions are a continual source of slapstick humor. Wallace has a machine that dumps him out of bed, drops him through a trapdoor to the kitchen, slaps his clothes on him, and then automatically plops porridge into a bowl. When the machine malfunctions, Wallace wears the oatmeal.
Adults enjoy the comic timing and children delight in the action-adventure. Heroes Wallace and Gromit are an ingenious team, lovable if laughable. In the relationship between the man and his dog, you can never be sure who is a sidekick to whom as Gromit often seems to out-think his human counterpart. Younger children can identify with intelligent, yet put-upon Gromit, who sees the villains before Wallace every time.
Quirky Park also has a particular talent for creating unlikely villains -- a penguin (also known as the chicken burglar), an appliance abandoned on the moon, and an evil robot dog.
For more great Aardman animation, try Chicken Run, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
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ViolenceMild comic violence, Some scenes achieve a sinister tone, with creaking doors, dark basements, and chilling music. |
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Social BehaviorThere's no diversity among human characters, but the focus of these shorts is less on humans and more on interspecies humor, conflict, and camaraderie. |
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