The Gruffalo

Before a mouse goes for wander in the forest to find a nut, he fails to consider that he is just about bite-size for most of it's other dwellers. There's a snake, an owl - who does seem to find it quite difficult to fly in a straight line, and a ferocious fox. Perhaps he has read "1001 Nights" though, because when faced with becoming sandwich fodder, he conjures up an image for each of them of this great and menacing monster. This does the trick until, well guess who he meets amongst the trees? This is a simple story that lends itself well to some endearing and characterful stop-motion animation. It's all in their eyes! The narrative offers us the perspective of an innocent child as we explore and the mouse improvises, often humorously, to escape his tricky predicaments. It's an half an hour that is easy to watch and I did quite enjoy it.

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!

It's even better than the book. This is everything that 'Where the Wild Things Are' should have been, but wasn't.

The animation style is interesting, and I just love the dialogue and voice acting. We have a four year old, and he just loves this film. At about a half-hour, it's not too long for kids that can't sit through an hour or longer movie without getting disinterested.

The music is beautiful as well. Very memorable and peaceful.

If you have a little one, I recommend this film - it's one of those 'kid' films that is just as fun for the parents to watch, thanks to all the little nuances put into it (like how every living thing except the mouse gets put through the food chain).

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!

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!