Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Megamind To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

tedg Oh help. Oh no! This is not the Gruffalo.If you know the book of which this story is the sequel, then you have experienced something special. It has an untrusted narrator nested in another untrusted narrator. The inner con is by a mouse who fools dumb predators with a tale of a fictional creature. The outer con has the noir storyteller change the nature of the world to make this creature real.The mouse then modifies his original con to escape the new danger. The surrounding execution of the book is good: rhythms and detail in the drawings. But the real power of the thing is the way it takes a Chinese folk tale (similar to the Br'er Rabbit stories) and adds in this meta-noir, meta-cinematic structure.So imagine my anticipation on hearing that the same team produced a sequel and that it had been translated into film. Back into film would be my preferred notion.Well, "The Gruffalo's Child" book has none of the magic of the original — none of the teasing of truth that made me want to expose my kids to it.This story is told without any folds in the narration. There is a nesting in the film version that copies that of the film of the first story: a mother squirrel telling the story of the child, but even that is straight; there is no causal connection between the world of the squirrels and that of the mouse. This only works if you have the original story in your head and consider this a second half-chapter.The style of the animation is poor. The book's text is jaunty and the illustrations support that (without adding to it). The studio who did this apparently had a good procedure for snow, but chose to renter all the creatures as balloons.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

TheLittleSongbird As a big animation fan, I loved The Gruffalo's Child. It is not quite as good as The Gruffalo, which I also loved, but of all the programmes airing over the Christmas break The Gruffalo's Child stood out as one of the treasures. The animation is true to the illustrations and looks superb with sophisticated backgrounds and colours that look simply beautiful. The rhyming dialogue is droll and sometimes amusing, delighting any child, adult or even family watching, and the story while simple is very charming and heart-warming, in short effective in its simplicity. I loved the cute(and never cloying) characters as well, and the voice cast was great especially from Shirley Henderson, who was very whimsical and moving as the Child. Overall, wonderful. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Armand Nice story about curiosity and survive. About childhood and search behind legend. And soul of legend. A naive story about basic things. In the skin of evening tale but seductive for animation, game of snow, remember of lost age and moral. For short dialogs and small ambitions. For old fashion flavor. And for memories about another meetings of heroes with the secrets or monsters. In fact, a kind of hot tea. With lemon, cookies and a sunny morning. Or a piece of chocolate or a milk cup. Or fly of a bird. After complicated projects of Disney or Pixar revolution, it is an oasis far from universal movies or box office star.And this is secret of its success. Courage to be only a story of a clever mouse and a Gruffalo in search of truth Nothing more.

bob the moo Essentially reversing the plot of the original Gruffalo short, this time the squirrel tells her children a tale about the Gruffalo's child going into the woods to seek out the fearsome mouse that her father uses as a warning not to wander off. As before each animal encountered points the child onwards to a new threat and as before the result is a cute and enjoyable little short film even if it never really excels in a great deal. It probably helped by enjoyment that I recorded this and watched it later on Christmas Day – and did so after watching the rather disappointing and heartless Doctor Who special. In stark contrast this film is simple, quite warming and very easy to watch with its rhyming dialogue and simple characters.It perhaps lacks the Pixar sense of humour or a cynical edge to appeal to adults specifically but it is hard to dislike it for just how simple a tale it is. The animation is impressive but yet retains the feel of a children's book – I feel no shame in admitting that I was watching this in a dressing gown at the end of a day of wine and food and it felt oddly comforting to be sitting being told this wholesome and simple little tale. The dialogue works well in this effect with it repetition and rhyming nature while the voice cast from the first film mostly return. Most of them only have a few lines apart from Shirley Henderson, who plays her usual "odd Scottish waif" role really well as the child – she was a good bit of casting and brought a lot of character to the child. As before Corden mercifully underplays and does good as the mouse.Overall The Gruffalo's Child is not really worthy of comparison to that other animated Christmas favourite of Wallace and Gromit, but it engagingly pleasing in its simplicity and good-natured telling. It is written for young children but yet the film felt warming and easy for me in my mid-30's; how it would stand up on a bright summer's day I don't know, but as a nice little family film it worked really well on Christmas Day.