Great Expectations Fulfilled!

Rating: 9/10 (19 June 2000)

Being huge fans of Aardman Animation ('Wallace and Gromit' in particular), my wife and I had been looking forward to their first full-length feature film, with great expectations, ever since they first announced their plans in 1998. With two years of heightened anticipation, we easily could have been disappointed with the results (shades of Star Wars Episode One).
After seeing the sneak preview this past weekend, I am please to report that we were not let down in the least! This was a crackin' good movie! Okay, maybe the story was a bit predictable. Still, it was the most fun we have had at a movie in a very long time. I sat there for 88 minutes just marveling at the skill and imagination it must have taken to put something like this on the big screen.
Adults should definitely see this movie for the humor alone. Your kids won't understand the bulk of it but you'll be laughing your heads off (i.e. Fowler's comment about Rocky, the American rooster, voiced by Mel Gibson: "I'm not entirely convinced he's an American!" Priceless.). Very young children will definitely be disturbed by one scene where one hen meets her destiny on the chopping block (tastefully done, though).
With the advent of computers taking over the bulk of the animation chores in todays movies, its good to see old-fashioned, painstaking work achieve such marvelous results. Now the painful wait begins for the next feature: 'The Tortoise and the Hare' (followed by 'The Wallace and Gromit Movie')! I'm betting it will be well worth the wait.