YouHeart I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

classicsoncall This was my first Wallace and Gromit film short and by the looks of other reviewers here, it might be I picked the best of the bunch to start with. I thought it entertaining enough but don't think it merits it's high rating on IMDb. What I look for in animated films are the sight gags and clever one liners, so I got a kick out of Gromit reading 'Crime and Punishment' by Fido Dogstoyevsky. Once freed from jail, Gromit takes on the appearance of Snoopy in the cockpit of the Sopwith Camel when he takes to the skies to free the sheep. But to get arrested for killing sheep in the first place, well that's a bit hard to take for a canine cartoon hero. What fascinates me most about the picture is that it's done in Claymation, which requires the utmost patience and precision to make the picture flow so evenly. To be honest, I would not have selected this film to watch on my own, but it appears on an IMDb Top 250 list as I work my way back through the years of collecting the data. I'll also be watching the two earlier W&G selections as well, but for me it's more of a completist exercise to watch and review all the top rated movies. This short convinces me that IMDb ultimately made the right decision to limit their Top 250 to live action and feature length animated movies.

studioAT The third 'Wallace and Gromit' adventure has lost none of it's charm 21 years later, even in our age of 3D and computer animated films.The reason for this is mainly because everything Aardman do is so homemade, so charming, you can literally see the finger marks on the models. That goes a long way.And also there's a good story being told. It's got adventure, it's got great set pieces. There's charm at every turn and is so quintessentially British that we fall in love with Wallace and Gromit from the word go.The previous outing 'The Wrong Trousers' is many people's favourite of their films, but for me this one is right up there.

Tommy Nelson Just thinking about stop motion animation makes one think of a slow and tedious process of moving everything in the frame scene by scene. It takes forever (seemingly), and just two years after Wallace and Gromit's last adventure, we get this superbly animated, well thought out short film, that is actually as exciting as many live action adventure pictures. Proof that Nick Park and crew are about quality, because after the success of "the Wrong Trousers" it would be easy to cash in on a less than great installment, but thankfully for us, that's not the case.A mysterious wool shortage has plagued the town where Wallace and Gromit, who are now cleaning windows, live. What lies before this man and dog duo is a love interest, a sheep rustling murderous dog, and a lot of sheep. When thinking of the original three Wallace and Gromit shorts, I've always put this one and the Wrong Trousers nearly on par as perfect shorts, and while I still feel that way, this one falls a little short of their second adventure, and yet this has nothing really wrong with it to make it worse. When you have two perfect shorts, one is going to probably be favored over the other, and the lack of talking and pure clay animated suspense that "Wrong Trousers" produced stands above this equally wonderful, but more grandiose outing. Either way, this is seriously great, and one of the greatest short films out there.The animation has improved greatly since "The Wrong Trousers". The animation is smoother, the sets are more three dimensional and the town in which they live in is given more of a personality, and fingerprints aren't as prominent on the figures. And the animation on the action sequences is superb. The last film gave us the hilarious train sequence, and this one gives us many action sequences, most notably being the motorcycle chase and the oatmeal machine gun shootout which are both spectacular and hilariously implausible. The whole five (or so) minute chase scene in the film is seriously as interesting, well thought out, and action packed as most regular action flicks, and it manages to be so without any violence or explosions. Truly a testament to the writing and animation of this thing.Composer Julian Nott is also a huge part of this film. His music sounds like a mix of suspenseful thriller music, and a German polka...an unlikely combination, but one that fits so perfectly, giving the scenes a playful bounce, along with a "something bad is going to happen" feel. A new addition to the score for this film that wasn't in the previous two was the love theme which is almost a parody of love themes, but one that stands on it's own and also works perfectly in the scenes.Wallace and Gromit represent not just quality animation, but also top notch writing, well thought out jokes and gags, fantastic direction from Nick Park, and proof that animation is not just for kids. Nick Park and the team at Aardman animation can easily be thought of as the Pixar team of England.My rating: **** out of ****. 31 mins. Not rated, but good for the whole family.

Lee Eisenberg This time, Wallace and Gromit take in a lost sheep named Sean, and get drawn into a sheep-rustling conspiracy. As always, there's a plethora of wacky inventions (namely the motorcycle sidecar). I think that my favorite scene was when Gromit was reading "Crime and Punishment" (check out the author's name). Nick Park certainly always knows how to come up with something clever in these cartoons, and you'd better believe that he does just that in "Wallace & Gromit in A Close Shave". Park showed the talent that he previously brought to "Creature Comforts" and would later bring to "Chicken Run". You just might think twice about using wool after seeing this movie. Really cool.