3 gibbles out of 5

Director: Nick Park

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Wallace & Gromit, yes?  And what have they been up to?  Alas, it’s much of the same.  But with W & G, that’s not really a bad thing.

Loaf & Death casts our duo as bread bakers supreme, applying their techno-gadgetry toward allowing for a 1-man 1-dog all-in-one bake it and deliver it service.  On their breading travels, Wallace meets and chats up a long time crush of his, Piella Bakewell, who was the poster girl for Bake-O-Lite bread in her heyday.  She and Wallace seem to be falling in love fast and heavy… but might she be up to something more sinister?  It’s up to Gromit to put the pieces together.

You like that description, yes?  Fits on the back of a DVD?  Perhaps.  I’m a big animation fan, as well as loving any type of humor that can play to both kids and adults at the same time.  The original Wallace & Gromit shorts are still quite amazing, and funny, and charming.  They were never not bizarre, and W & G seemed to have access to all sorts of materials and inventions, but it stayed somewhat grounded in a cartoon sense, sticking to activities in and around the house that would branch out to kooky adventures.

The movie expanded on all of these things, as they often do, sort of blowing the world of Wallace and Gromit up to full size.  It seems that this same sensibility has been maintained but then attemptedly shut into this new short.  The dry and silly humor is still in place in an appropriate mix, as is the firm relationship between our two principles, but the opening sequence is already on a much more massive scale than any of the shorts, just in terms of what’s going on on the screen.  It should be applauded to have the funds and abilities to put this much work into something, but it dilutes a little of the homespun charm that made W & G notable.

A more traditional "thumbs up" rating for the film.

buy it