classicsoncall
The reviews here on IMDb for this first film short featuring Wallace and Gromit range the gamut from calling it the least enjoyable to the best. Having seen "The Wrong Trousers" and "A Close Shave", I guess I'd have to go along with those who say this was the weakest entry, but I'll have to qualify that by saying that I don't really care for any of them in the grand scheme of animated features. The principal characters don't strike me as particularly endearing, although Gromit's a dog, so I can cut him some slack. The story here seemed to move at an incredibly slow pace and I didn't have any kind of sense of what that yellow box on the moon was supposed to be. With the premise of the story having Wallace and Gromit heading for the moon in a spaceship to score some cheese, what it looked like to me was Gromit slicing off a piece of play-dough for his crackers. Have you ever tasted play-dough? Very salty. As for the story - very cheesy. The folks at Aardman may have been on to something with this one.
O2D
This first Wallace & Gromit short is sometimes thought of as the best but it's not.In case you don't know the characters, I'll catch you up.Wallace is a not so smart inventor and Gromit is his very intelligent dog.Wallace is always doing dumb things while Gromit sits back and watches.Maybe because he can't speak or maybe he's just a jerk,they never broach the subject.In this adventure, Wallace discovers they are out of cheese and decides they should go to the moon because it's made of cheese.I understand this series isn't meant to be realistic or factual but sometimes they push it a bit far. So anyway, Wallace builds a rocket out of a wooden door with some help from Gromit.They go to the moon and meet some weird vending/washing machine that takes British money and is sentient.After reading Wallace's vacation magazines, the machine gets some ideas of how to have fun on the moon.This is definitely something all kids and some adults should watch at least once.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
Say cheese. 13 years after Will Vinton invented it, claymation is back. This short film was a milestone in animation history. The fact that Park lost the Best Animated Feature Oscar to himself that year does it no harm. He won with his three follow-up Wallace and Gromit films then, the last being a full feature.I quite like this short film, not as much as The Wrong Trousers, but more than A Close Shave. Park is on such a creative high that year that he brings us Wallace & Gromit, almost in their ultimate shape, with a great catchy tune and also already a prospect of things to come in the famous Aardman sheep on the picture at the wall of the rocket. What do you do when you realize that you've run out of cheese for your crackers. That's right. Go get some and combine with your annual holiday travel by picking the moon as the destination. After all, it's made all of cheese. Gromit's look to the camera says it all. But how did they get the cows up there? Anyway, watching this short film I had to think of French movie pioneer Georges Méliès' Trip to the Moon which shows quite a few parallels: the planning, the rocket building and finally the flight from the inhabitants. This can't be a coincidence.After they reach the moon and we get to see a short gravity joke, they run into a cleaning robot, who's quickly fed up with tidying up after the mess Wallace leaves behind after testing different moon cheese culinary meals from several corners of the moon. He is rewarded in the end for his efforts and his dream finally comes true. A must-see for animation lovers.
TheLittleSongbird
Nick Park has delighted many with his unique creations. Wallace and Gromit is the best of the lot, though Chicken Run is great too. Although this is the weakest offering from them(some of the clay was a bit runny), it is still hilarious. Wallace is superlatively voiced by Peter Sallis, and it is pretty much a one-man show. I loved Gromit, and although he never speaks, his facial expressions are priceless. I loved the idea of Wallace thinking the moon was made of cheese, and the plot never ran out of steam. The scenes on the moon, with the yellow box on wheels, were well done too. in conclusion, although this is the weakest short in terms of quality, the one that started it all is well worth watching. 9/10 Bethany Cox.
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