Nearly 4 years after ‘A Grand Day Out’, Wallace & Gromit were back, polished up and ready for a terrifying encounter with a hardend criminal penguin!

And, im in the rather nice position of being a bit conflicted about this one over whether getting rid of some of the nicer elements of ‘A Grand Day Out’ and replacing them with significantly higher production values and a tighter script/direction puts this one ABOVE ‘A Grand Day Out’ or below it.

The plot revolves around our pair of cheese loving companions running into hard financial times. Wallace decides to let out his spare room, and is taken up on the offer by a mysterious Penguin. Who quickly reveals himself to have alterior motives and a jewel heist on the cards. Utilizing a pair of ex-NASA mechanical ‘self walking’ trousers. Feathers McGraw, our Penguin prince of crime is planning a diamond heist…and only Gromit may be able to stop him.

Usually it takes a couple of films in a franchise for the characters to properly bed in, but ‘A Grand Day Out’ did such a great job of building these characters and the world, that ‘The Wrong Trousers’ feels more like fine tuning than establishing at this point.

The plot is pretty light touch, with even more emphasis on ‘showing’ rather than telling the audience whats happening. making it easily accessable to most ages. the humour is gentle, but VERY effective and the pacing is pretty solid, especially at only 30 minutes long.

The direction and animation has a MASSIVE facelift here over the first film, tidying up the character models adding much more detail to the background of sets and really pushing the boundaries of what could be done with claymation at the time. The train robbery finale being cited by serveal major directors as being ‘one of the greatest chase scenes’ not just in animation history, but in film history.

What it gains in the tidying up and focussing however, I do feel it loses in warmth a little. theres sorrow in this short. But this feels less like ‘a warm hug from an old friend’ and more like a traditional adventure film with a quitessential british touch…Theres nothing wrong with that…but its a different vibe and tone to the first outing.

Vocal performances continue to be as solid as ever, but its really the claymation emotions and reactions that fully sell this story. the sequence where Gromit corners Feathers with a rolling pin, only for Feathers to pull a gun is a masterclass in timing and emotional response.

throw in once again an upbeat bouncy orchestral score and we’re left with probably the most consistent ‘Wallace & Gromit’ short to date, and certainly the biggest risk taker of the series so far. It all pays off though with a highly memorable and enjoyable short that I really need to watch again sooner rather than later.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-wrong-trousers/