Strong and Moving!

Let's be realistic.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

By now most people, at least here in Britain, will be familiar with Claymation duo Wallace and Gromit and this is where it all started. Wallace is a Lancastrian man with a taste for cheese and Gromit his dog who actually seems to be the more intelligent of the two.As the story opens they are trying to decide where to go on their holidays; then Wallace realises that they are out of cheese… so decides to head to the moon as everybody knows it is made of cheese. We soon see that Wallace is also a bit of an inventor as he designs a rocket then builds it with Gromit. They get there and settle down to have a picnic… and find the moon is in fact made of cheese. They also find a coin operated machine which when activated doesn't approve of the damage the visitors are doing to the moon… it also sees a travel magazine they brought and dreams of skiing!This isn't the best of the Wallace and Gromit shorts but it is still a lot of fun and does a great job introducing the now familiar characters. The story is fun in a way that can be enjoyed by everybody from young children to the elderly. There is a great inventiveness about the story; I loved the fact that Wallace is an ordinary person; of course it helps that Peter Sallis does such a fine job providing the voice of the character. Gromit is equally good; managing to be a great character without making a sound; the way he is animated brilliantly shows what he is thinking though. Interestingly there is no real antagonist in this story… the machine on the moon isn't really malicious even though it provides a mild level of threat. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to Claymation fans; it is a must see for all fans of Wallace and Gromit of course.

Aardman Animation started as a small company founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton in the mid-70s. They're speciality was the almost lost art of stop-motion animation, particularly with claymation figures. They enjoyed some success with the eye-popping Peter Gabriel music video Sledgehammer. But the company really found its feet when novice animator Nick Park joined the studio.It was Park who would put the company on the map, and introduce two of the most endearing animated characters the world would ever see, Wallace & Gromit. The Wallace & Gromit world is a most peculiar one. Wallace is a scatterbrained, cheese-obsessed inventor, always working on the next madcap invention. Gromit is his faithful dog, and much smarter than Wallace ever will be. With his incredibly expressive monobrow, he watches in silent dismay as Wallace's cock-ups get them into the wackiest adventures.Each one of the Wallace & Gromit shorts has been a delight. So far we've seen the likes of a skiing oven, robotic trousers, a cyber-dog, a cereal killer, and with they're feature film debut, a Were-Rabbit. The films manage a perfect blend of laugh-aloud comedy and smart visual invention. My mouth always waters at the prospect of the next adventure.And A Grand Day Out is where it all began. Wallace and Gromit are lounging they're Bank Holiday away, so Wallace wants to go somewhere exotic. With not a piece of cheese in the house, Wallace on an impulse decides to build a rocket ship and fly to the Moon (which is made of cheese, to Wallace's thinking). But when they get there, they instead have to contend with a ski-obsessed oven/cooker, who won't leave them in peace.Even in they're debut, Wallace & Gromit and A Grand Day Out is a charming adventure. All of the things we would come to expect about them are plain to see, albeit in a slightly rougher, uncut form. They're characterisations have already been established, with Peter Sallis nailing Wallace's dimwitted inflections. And Aardman's love of nutty contraptions is there too.The film comes with many delightful sight gags tucked around every corner. I especially liked the rocket ship's wallpapered interior, and the throwaway sight of a handbrake on the control panel. But the most inspired idea is a coin-operated oven lying neglected on the Moon. I've always been an enormous fan of silent comedy (why I like Gromit so much as a character). And Park and Aardman create an intriguing character with this oven.Wisely, they don't give it a voice of its own (perhaps the budget wouldn't stretch that far?). Instead, they just build a character out of incidental details and its all enacted in total silence: the cooker's daydreaming of skiing; writing out a parking ticket to Wallace's rocket; gluing the surface of the Moon back together; trying to hit Wallace with a truncheon only for the money to run out mid-swing, etc.Nick Park directs it all with such a light touch that the film breezes by. However, as much as I enjoyed the film it does have its flaws. A Grand Day Out is probably the weakest of the Wallace & Gromit shorts. The animation is a little rough around the edges, and lacks the pristine sleekness of the subsequent entries. It also falls down in the plot department. All of the other Wallace & Gromit films are driven by far stronger stories. This one is quite thin. For instance, we never learn how the cooker wound up on the Moon in the first place. (you'd swear it's one of Wallace's failed inventions). The plot, such as it is, is made to take a backseat to the (admittedly funny) visual puns and Wallace & Gromit's effortless double-act.Perhaps A Grand Day Out hasn't aged as well as the other films, but a lot of the things we've come to love about Wallace & Gromit are already in place. One area where it does have the edge is its the most conceptually ambitious. All the other films in the series have remained earthbound and A Grand Day Out is the only one so far to aim for something more profound. It touches upon themes rarely seen in animation today. If it had the budget accorded The Curse of the Were-Rabbit then perhaps A Grand Day Out may have become something extraordinary rather than just an engaging entertainment.To look at it in the harsh light of day, A Grand Day Out is the prototype. It was The Wrong Trousers that really set the style for the series, and struck up the balance between top quality writing, sidesplitting comedy and fabulous animation in all of the right places. Still, a highly promising debut nonetheless that rightfully converted an entire nation.

Nick Park has delighted many with his unique creations. Wallace and Gromit is the best of the lot, though Chicken Run is great too. Although this is the weakest offering from them(some of the clay was a bit runny), it is still hilarious. Wallace is superlatively voiced by Peter Sallis, and it is pretty much a one-man show. I loved Gromit, and although he never speaks, his facial expressions are priceless. I loved the idea of Wallace thinking the moon was made of cheese, and the plot never ran out of steam. The scenes on the moon, with the yellow box on wheels, were well done too. in conclusion, although this is the weakest short in terms of quality, the one that started it all is well worth watching. 9/10 Bethany Cox.

Wallace and Gromit are a phenomenon. How many stop motion animation films win Oscars, top the US and UK box office charts etc. But all that came later.A Grand Day Out was the first Wallace and Gromit film. Low budget. More or less a graduation piece. Of course the animation is less sophisticated than in the later films. Of course the plot is a little shallow. The entire story is designed to minimise the need for sophisticated animation and to maximise the excuse for shortcomings (perhaps dogs and people would move a bit like that on a cheese moon).Yet it is extraordinary to see how much of the Aardman genius is already there in this short film. Hilarious and clever references to other films. Mice in shades for take off. The rocket handbrake gag. Coin-operated machine gags (brilliantly recycled in Were-Rabbit BTW). And a machine (is it an Aga?) that daydreams about skiing when it sees Wallace's holiday magazines.Of course TWT, ACS and Were-Rabbit are better movies, but this film is so worth seeing as a sign of early genius and indeed in its own right as a crude but wonderful animated film.