A Close Shave (1995)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Just perfect...

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I have no idea what I have just seen.After the first two Wallace and Gromit shorts I had high expectations for the third.I couldn't have been more disappointed.For some reason W & G are window cleaners this time.By the time you stop thinking about that, it's too late to just turn it off.Wallace falls in love with the owner of a wool shop whose windows they clean.Her name is Wendolene Ramsbottom and I'm not sure how I feel about that.On one hand I get that it's a genius joke, naming her after a window cleaning product and an animal that is similar to a sheep.At the same time it doesn't make any sense because she doesn't clean windows and no one gets wool from rams.Maybe I'm over thinking her name but it's the most interesting thing about this short.My least favorite thing about this is that they take the newspaper joke from The Wrong Trousers and use it to death, without it ever being funny.I heard they made a Shaun The Sheep movie and I shudder to think what it may be like.Kids might enjoy this but it's definitely not for everyone.Anyone over 10 should pass on this.

Cracking film! What a film! The film is amazing and funny. Very British. People who can't understand the accent and says its Canadian, are just dumb. Like come on, the film's set in England, does not take a Wallace to figure out where the film is set. Aside from the stupid people who don't know what they are on about. The film is amazing. Watched it for the first time in about 7 years and still laughed at the quirky British jokes. Well done Ardman. I would recommend this film to anyone who wants to see a good British film and not see some Hugh Grant RomCom that's dated so badly its funny."It's poetry in motion" - Daniel Coombs

Wallace & Gromit made a likable debut with A Grand Day Out. The film had some problems to iron out, but by the time of The Wrong Trousers, Nick Park had gained a command of the stop-motion process, and captured lightning in a bottle. The Oscar-winning success of the film turned Wallace & Gromit into household names.Aardman were quick to find the funds for a third instalment. With every Wallace & Gromit film, the animators refine they're craft a little bit further. They become more ambitious. The plots run even deeper. And the animation becomes ever more polished. This is all certainly clear to see in A Close Shave. The Wrong Trousers has a slight edge over it, but A Close Shave is yet another lively, hilarious Wallace & Gromit adventure.A Grand Day Out had a giddy innocence to it. But it was obvious from The Wrong Trousers that Nick Park was taking the characters in much darker directions. A Close Shave goes even deeper, and is further proof that the Wallace & Gromit series is now in a very different place from where it first started.Wallace & Gromit are into a new business venture, window-cleaning. Wallace falls for Wendoline, the owner of a wool-shop he (or rather Gromit) does the windows for. But Wendoline has a secret. A secret that ropes Wallace & Gromit into an adventure with sheep rustlers and a dog who is not the good shepherd he appears.Every film in the series develops an increasing maturation. Not just in the way they're made, but also in the way they're written. Its difficult to remember at this point that A Close Shave was made by the same team of animators who produced the light romanticism of A Grand Day Out. Aardman are working from an all new rule book.The Wrong Trousers had a seriousness to it over its predecessor. But it took some time into the film before we began to notice. With A Close Shave, its impossible not to see it. Heck, the film even abandons Julian Nott's signature theme music, and dives right into the storyline.Right from the opening frame, an unmistakable dourness permeates the picture. Wendoline and Preston pull up outside Wallace and Gromit's house in the dead of night. The way Preston is dressed, you know he's got crime on his mind. His face is stern, no-nonsense. Right away we know he's the villain of the film. We need to remind ourselves here that we're watching a Wallace & Gromit picture.That doesn't mean the film isn't funny. We get the usual sidesplitting scenes with Wallace's inventions. Especially good is Wallace gearing up for work with chutes and levers, while Gromit just sits in a sidecar waiting for Wallace to finish up.This film is also a departure from the others in the series by having the first character, other than Wallace, who can speak. Anne Reid gives a sympathetic voice to Wendoline's plight, and never comes between the delightful double-act of Wallace and Gromit, always the heart of the series.One of the best things about The Wrong Trousers was the surprising poignancy Nick Park managed to make us feel for Gromit, watching Feathers McGraw slowly oust him from Wallace's house. He pulls off the same trick again when Preston frames Gromit for sheep-rustling. Seeing Gromit sitting in a jail cell without a friend in the world is a raw, emotional moment. Especially when he gets a present, a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and he starts crying. Its impossible not to feel real sadness for the character.A Close Shave ups the action quotient too. Everyone remembers the train set chase in The Wrong Trousers, but Nick Park and his animation team have gone all out to top that sequence with even more dizzying thrills and spills. Gromit's sidecar going over a cliff and turning into an aeroplane is just as exciting as anything in a James Bond film.And A Close Shave gets itself together for a marvellous climax, when Preston is revealed to be a robot underneath. Gleefully cribbing The Terminator, the sequence with all of the characters on a conveyor belt trying to avoid being crushed is as breathless as it is funny.One criticism you could make of the film is that it isn't as tight as The Wrong Trousers. The film makes many swoops and dives, and the plot line is an engaging one. But A Close Shave takes several viewings to get a proper grasp of the narrative, meaning its not as dramatically taut as The Wrong Trousers, or as instantly accessible as A Grand Day Out.We would have to wait a staggering ten years for the next instalment, Wallace & Gromit's feature film debut, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, a delightful story just as engaging as any of the shorts. A Close Shave is yet another worthy addition to the canon with plenty for everyone. And look out for Shaun the Sheep, who steals any scene just by being in it.

This was the third in a series of three short BBC programs featuring Wallace and his pet dog Gromit. I thought the three films got better and better as went along, this being the best of the three. There are some very clever and entertaining scenes in the 30-miunte movie. the color also was good - nice animation. Of course, it's only gotten better and better since these were made, capped off recently by a full-length Wallace & Gromit film.I don't think I ever stop laughing looking at the mouths on Wallace and the woman he likes in this story. Wallace is a window cleaner and "Wendolene" is the object of his affections. Unfortunately, both the woman and her pet dog are not good "people." In fact, her pet dog, "Preston" frames poor Gromit for sheep-rustling and winds up in jail. Wallace must rescue him.A subplot involves Wallace and his love of cheese. It's all silly, of course, but very entertaining and the best of the three short Wallace & Gromit animated films of the period (1989-1993), in my opinion.