The Wrong Trousers

The Wrong Trousers; stop-motion animated adventure comedy short, UK, 1993; D: Nick Park, S: Peter Sallis

In London, inventor Wallace lives with his dog Gromit. Their favorite dish is cheese, but when one day they get a bigger bill than they can pay because Gromit got a robotic trousers that will bring him out for walk for his birthday, they decide to take a lodger in their apartment. A Penguin moves in, but he is a criminal and one night puts the robotic trousers on the sleeping Wallace to move him by remote control right into a museum to steal a diamond. But Wallace wakes up in the process, even though he can't get out of the remote controlled trousers, until Gromit helps him. The Penguin gets arrested and placed in a Zoo.

Shining stop-motion animated short film "The Wrong Trousers" manages in only 29 minutes of its running time to convince even the most grouchy viewers of its quality and cheerfulness, whereas the story that's at the same time simple and sharp brought fame to its author Nick Park. The characters of Wallace and his dog Gromit, who are wonderful friends, are fascinating; and the gags involving the bad guy Penguin are virtuoso directed and contagiously charming—the stand-out, hilarious moment is when the criminal Penguin is using his remote control to move the robotic trousers which a sleeping Wallace is wearing. The scene alone where the trousers are walking vertically up the wall while Wallace is hanging there, sleeping, unaware he is in the middle of a robbery, was already enough to make this film good even if all others situations would have failed. But they even surpassed it with numerous other gags and jokes (the remote-controlled trousers exit the museum by simply walking on the window, which tilts and rotates open to the other side). The meticulous action choreography in the finale re-writes the history of cinema—the sequence where Gromit is placing tracks for his speeding toy train and thus creating his own path are a tour-de-force example of genius. A fantastic fun, just one in line of Park's Wallace and Gromit movies—such as "A Grand Day Out" and "A Close Shave"—but this one is the best, a small masterpiece. One of the purest examples of sheer outburst of unlimited creative childish energy, an animated gem, and one of the best stop-motion animated films of all times.

Grade:++++