The 3rd Outing for ‘Wallace & Gromit’ once again fine tunes the formulae, and fine tunes the world our characters inhabit, but the beginnings of ‘marketability’ are beginning to creep in with this short, and I feel like the series has never quite managed to pull itself away from that since.

This outing finds Wallace & Gromit working as window cleaners for their local town, when one day a sheep randomly wanders into their house and starts consuming everything in sight. This, is Shaun and after servicing the shop of a woolen wonder by the name of Wendy, Wallace is smitten…theres only one problem, Wendy is being forced to work for Preston, a dangerous dog with more going on than meets the eye…and preston KNOWS that Shaun has escaped a special operation he’s working on…and he wants him back.

I mention ‘Marketability’ because this was the first special that really put Wallace & Gromit on the map and basically set up the next 20 or so years of the pairs outings. Shaun the sheep is introduced here, who, he himself would go on to have a 10 year multi series (and film) run on the CBBC channel, Wallace and Wendy would get multiple merch items from plushies to mugs to teatowels, and retroactively Gromit and Feathers from the last outing would also get heavy merch outputs…and a thing that hangs over this film a bit is the feeling it was planned that way. Its all a bit ‘return of the jedi’ on that front.

Thats not to knock the special itself, which is still fun, interesting and, if anything has a bit more of that ‘Grand Day Out’ warmth about it than ‘The Wrong Trousers’ did…But the big show pieces in this special dont feel quite as grand as ‘Trousers’ and the humour doesnt seem as charming or focussed as previous entries too…theres much more emphasis on visual gags and cute looking animals looking cute while destroying property.

Thinking about it, I think the issue for me is that Wallace & Gromit was pitched before as a soft ‘F’ for family movie, as in it was something aimed at adults, but harmless enough that the kids could happily watch and enjoy it, where as this is more a hard ‘F’ for family production, targeting kids primarily and treating grownups as a bit more of an after thought…

that still not to knock this special which, ultiamtely still has some fantastic voice work from Anne Reid and Peter Sallis, some rock solid set pieces, some really good animation, a phenominal score and solid tone and structuring script wise…I dunno, I used to really like this one, but it just felt a bit ‘softened’ this time around…Still! as far as it being the closing part on the original ‘Wallace & Gromit’ trilogy. I think it sends them off on a high and is still really good fun!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/a-close-shave-1995/