Le Gruffalo

This came on BBC1 on Christmas Day, and like Wallace and Gromit before it, I recorded it so it could be watched later. I've finally got around to watching it, and I was pleasantly surprised.

With a solid voice cast voicing the animals, the rhyming dialogue is sweet and never annoying.

The story of the mouse, as told by a mother squirrel to her two babies is episodic but suitably so. The jokes were funny and it was even somewhat dark in places where it needed to be.

The animation is probably not as polished as Lost and Found(2008) but has it's own caricatured, simplistic charm and is aesthetically faithful to the book(haven't read it, but have seen the cover).

Overall, an entertaining and amusing short about deception and survival done in a colourful and light way. I enjoyed it along with The First Snow of Winter, also based on a picture book, that has a similar tone, also featuring a 'big, bad' wolf. Good for young kids and the young at heart.

My son (who is 8) and I really enjoyed this. The animation is fantastic, the voices are great! We've been huge Gruffalo fans for years and I was worried that they would add to it, or take something from the charm but they did this brilliantly.The animal characters are well thought out, each given its own personality in the very small time they are on. It was funny and lovely to watch. The animals are beautifully done, the scenery is gorgeous. You could almost climb into the TV, really felt alive. I would recommend this to any parent and really any adult too. Tiny tiny drawback is the pace it quite slow, but its such a small drawback I still think is earns a well deserved 10/10! Can't rave about this enough, Well done BBC!

The only problem I have with these beautifully drawn, British animated shorts, like The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom is that they seem to me a bit too long for shorts. This wonderful tale was slightly better than Room on the Broom, thou. Searching for The Gruffalo's Child right away!

The only gripe I have about this film is that this animation is too short, as I had so much time watching it! The animation is superb, and every minute detail is taken into consideration. Certainly it involves a team of dedicated people, who do not do things just for the sake of doing it.

It is nominated for BAFTA awards, and it is very surprising that the film didn't get any awards for its astounding job.

I like the way the narrator makes the story to rhyme. And even though it is repetitive, it does not bother me.

A good full marks for this great short animation!

I enjoyed this short film quite a bit, though of all the films nominated for Best Animated Short this year, I think it and "Let's Pollute" have the least chance of winning the Oscar. We'll see--the winner is to be announced next week.

The film is odd because it's is a story within a story. It begins with a mother squirrel (Helena Bonham Carter...who, incidentally, doesn't seem that squirrelly to me) almost being caught by a bird of prey. She scrambles into her nest and tells her children a story about a mouse and when he was captured by predators--and how the clever mouse escapes.

The film is extremely cute and enjoyable. However, the character animation seemed only fair--and compared to many other CGI films of the last few years it does not compare well. This does not detract horribly from enjoying the film and the film's backgrounds are quite nice. All in all, I have no other negatives about it other than the character design and I am sure young kids will love it.

UPDATE: I was surprised, but just moments ago I saw that "The Lost Thing" won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. To me, this was a surprise!