Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions (2002)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Must See Movie...

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Do not be fooled by the description "television series" for this 2002 movie here. Well, you could see it as a series that consists of several extremely short snippets, but I prefer to perceive it as one 20-minute short movie. It is maybe the least known project involving the two famous protagonists. It's probably not really a good watch if you have not seen anything else with the duo, but if you are familiar with the franchise, including the very early short films, then this is a nice little addition. Maybe it's a bit too much action and one or two inventions too many for such a short runtime, but it's not bad by any means. And it was nice to have Sallis' unique and spot-on voice for the entire thing. All in all, I recommend this one. The animation is the same as always with these two. It's a decent little watch and another worthy addition to Nick Park's basically flawless body of work. I would say it's not the best W&G film (that would be the one with the evil penguin, nice reference here too about penguins turning), but also not the worst. Thumbs up.

... says Wallace to his faithfull dog Gromit in one of the 10 short clips 'Cracking Contraptions' contains. So the machines do the work: from going shopping to changing the channel and from building a snowman to making diner. It comes as no surprise these inventions aren't faultless...Obviously, with a set-up like this, one likes the one story better than the other, and my favorite is the first one, with a robot doing shopping. Second favorite: the vacuum cleaner. The least bit in my opinion is the robot chef. But overall the stories are amusing and the clay animations incredible. They make up for a very fun 18 minutes or so, although it's not the level of geniality 'The Wrong Trousers' was in my opinion.8/10.

Possible minor spoilers'Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions' is a collection of ten short animated movies about inventions of Wallace. Some of them work almost the entire time, some of them do things they should not do, some of them explode, some of them have side effects, some of them attack Wallace or Gromit and two of them perfectly work, although that was not what Gromit was hoping for.With inventions like the snowmanotron, the 525 crackervac, the bully proof vest and the tellyscope, my personal favorite together with the snoozatron, you know there are going to be some very hard laughs. The enthusiastic Wallace and the worried dog Gromit are very funny characters and in animated shorts like this they are perfect. Very well done.

In a series of very short films, Wallace the inventor demonstrates his newest inventions to his faithful dog Gromit. Some are useful but more often than not they cause more trouble than they're worth. Trouble that usually has to be remedied by Gromit.Who doesn't like W&G? For at least three Christmas times on the BBC we had a new 30 minute film from them that was always wonderful but now I understand they are working on a full length film they haven't been making them for the BBC anymore. Happily Christmas 2002 was different as they made a series of very short (3 minutes generally) films to be shown randomly throughout the BBC1 schedule. I wasn't able to see all of them but saw a few.Generally they are clever, witty and to the point - a western-style stand-off between a cracker hoover and Gromit was a nice touch, and there are other examples in each short or their unique touches. It's always pleasing to hear Sallis as Gromit - I enjoy Last of the Summer Wine and Wallace just reminds me so much of Sallis' character in that.I don't know where you are able to see these shorts. I suspect they will be made into a 30 minute video for sale or will turn up as extras on the DVD of the feature length movie at a later stage. By themselves they are just about worth trying to find - but at 3 minutes they'll be tricky. However spread over the Christmas schedule these were quite refreshing little treats.