The Wrong Trousers
Year: 1993
Rating: PG
Length: 29 minutes / 0.48 hours
There are plenty of movies where the second installment in a franchise takes all the lessons learned from the first film and uses them to make the absolute best movie possible. Terminator 2 (1991) and Spider-Man 2 (2004) are my go-to examples of this. This can also extend to short films, as seen by the second Wallace & Gromit short film, The Wrong Trousers (1993). There were a lot of improvements from A Grand Day Out, and I still think that this is the pinnacle of the Wallace & Gromit shorts.
This time around, the Plasticine duo is up against Feathers McGraw—a dastardly villain who takes advantage of Wallace’s kindness and gullible naivete. The pacing, music, and tension would fit right in with a Hitchcock film, which is what makes it that much sillier when the antagonist is a penguin with a rubber glove on its head. Having such a solid (and complete) plot was definitely a plus for this film, as there were actual stakes involved. With two-thirds of the characters being non-verbal, the comedy is right up there with the greats of the silent era, like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton.
As in A Grand Day Out, the stop-motion animation here is top-notch. And with a few more years to perfect the craft, the polish on everything was quite evident. I don’t think Aardman Animation would be around anymore if they hadn’t knocked it out of the park with this amazing piece of work. The train chase at the end is perhaps one of the best sequences ever put on film. Overall, The Wrong Trousers should be required viewing for anyone who loves movies, let alone stop-motion ones.
The pinnacle of the Wallace & Gromit franchise, I give The Wrong Trousers 5.0 stars out of 5.
