Matt Stone

Wallace & Gromit in Three Amazing Adventures
Directed By: Nick Park

Studio: DreamWorks
Year: 2005
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1 Hr. 30 Mins.
Rating: UR
Audio: 2.0 Dolby Digital (English), 2.0 Dolby Digital Mono (French)
Subtitles: English, Spanish, and French
MSRP: $19.95
Street Date: 20 September, 2005

Review Date: 24 September, 2005
(Ratings are out of five stars)

Summary
From Chicken Run Director/Creator Nick Park comes a collection of Wallace & Gromit shorts. This DVD features A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, and A Close Shave as well as 10 previously unreleased mini-shorts entitled Cracking Contraptions. The three shorts featured on this DVD were all nominated for Academy Awards, and the later two took home the Oscar.

A Grand Day Out(24:29) was the first film from Park and tells the story of inventor Wallace and his canine sidekick Gromit blasting off in a homemade rocket to see if the moon is really made of cheese.

The Wrong Trousers(31:01) has Wallace and Gromit team up to stop a diamond heist by a diabolical penguin.

A Close Shave (32:02) features the investigation of some sheep rustlers by Wallace and Gromit.

Not unlike the recent CG animated films from Pixar, the Wallace and Gromit shorts (along with the theatrical film Chicken Run) play well to audiences both young and old. The overall level of humor appeals to children, but the in-jokes and subtle character interplay resonate with adults. Wallace & Gromit does tend to opt for underplaying jokes rather than slinging them out a mile a minute like the Pixar films. Another difference is the clay animation used here as opposed to the CGI. I have a soft spot for physical effects, so seeing the stop motion animation is a breath of fresh air. Personally, before watching this DVD, I wasn’t to familiar with Park and Lord’s work. I saw Chicken Run theatrically, and I’ve known of Wallace and Gromit for a long time, but never got around to seeing the shorts. I can now see why their work is so highly appreciated among film fans.

Film Rating:

Video
The video quality is less than stunning, but is free from pesky compression artifacts and edge enhancement. It seems to be very accurate to the source, but the color palette is pretty drab. Each short is presented in its original full-frame aspect ratio. If you’re a big fan of the series, you should happy with the video.

Video Rating:

Audio
The audio quality is what you might expect from a low-budget clay-mation short: passable. The soundtrack is mostly made up of homemade sound effects and dialog and obviously isn’t reference material. Sound effects are very accurate, and the score sounds good. There isn’t much dynamic range, but considering the material, I’m happy with the results.

Audio Rating:

Extras
Cracking Contraptions(23:48) – This extra features 10 mini-shorts that highlight a few of Wallace’s different inventions. You can watch each individually or all together with the play all feature. The shorts are pretty...well...short, but if you’re a fan of Wallace and Gromit, you’ll have a fun time.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit Sneak Preview(2:59) – A sneak preview of the upcoming theatrical Wallace & Gromit feature film.
Cracking Contraptions: Behind the Scenes(7:54) – This feature is fairly short, but dense. It features on-set interviews with Nick Park and the rest of the crew. They touch on not only the Cracking Contraptions shorts, but on the entire history of Wallace & Gromit. Considering how little I knew about the series, this was an interesting look behind the scenes.

Extras Rating:

In Closing…
I may not have been too familiar with Wallace & Gromit before I watched this DVD, but I can definitely say that I’m a fan now. The humor is subtle and the use of clay-animation is very charming. As far as I can tell (fans can correct me here), this DVD features all of the major Wallace & Gromit releases thus far. The quality is less of a concern than the content, but it is far from below average. If you’re looking for some old-fashioned cartoon style humor, I suggest picking this one up. It can be found online for less than $15 and is guaranteed to provoke some laughter. On the other hand, if you already own one of the other Wallace & Gromit sets, you may want to just give this a rental to check out the Cracking Contraptions shorts.

Edit: From reading other's comments in this thread, it appears that there are two large omissions on this version of the W&G shorts. First, commentaries on the three shorts from Director Nick Park. Secondly, the original music track has been altered on The Wrong Trousers. Due to rights issues, it appears that DW replaced the original music. I'm not editing my ratings of the DVD, because as someone who hadn't seen the series previously, the omissions did not make a difference to me. That being said, if you're a completest...be warned.

Overall Rating:

Mark Walker

So the commentary tracks that Park did for the Warner Bros set were not carried over, nor was the truncated documentary made during the making of "The Wrong Trousers."

humph.

Well, at least I have both previous incarnations of the W&G trilogy on DVD. Still easily worth picking up because of the inclusion of the Crackling Contraption shorts, which, btw, were used to train the newer animators before taking on animating W&G for the feature film, and the low MSRP.

george kaplan

I bought this for Cracking Contraptions, and was keeping my fingers crossed that they'd release the original version of The Wrong Trousers. No such luck. It still has all the pathetic music replacements. Thank God I've got the original dvd of that, but it's a pain having these on different dvds, and it can't be that expensive to get the music rights to do muzak versions of 3 songs, at least one of which should be public domain by now.

"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder

"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.

"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock

"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk

JohnS

george kaplan

"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder

"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.

"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock

"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk

DaveF

I was excited to read this review, having only seen "The Wrong Trousers" and wanting to see the other W&G episodes. But now hearing about music replacements and missing commentaries makes me uncertain whether this is the DVD to buy. Are the original versions out elsewhere on DVD? Or is this the best W&G collection for now?

Matt Stone

To comment on my review...obviously with my lack of familiarity, I had no no idea about the music replacement. I'll edit the review to make note of that.

Sten F

Yes, they are still available. I would go for the Warner Bros. version as it has the features missing from the new release.

Moreover, I was fortunate enough to buy Region 2 of "Cracking Contraptions" exclusively released through CDWOW. Therefore, I won´t be double dipping the new release. I´d like to hear the commentaries, though.

Here is a review of Contraptions:

DVDTimes
DVDWeb

It´s nice to be important, but it´s more important to be nice.

Dustin James

george kaplan