The Gruffalo (2009 TV Movie) User Reviews

Charming short film

[jamiemiles99 · 8/10 · 22 February 2013]

As a parent of small kids I get used to watching films multiple times on DVD. Thankfully this one stands up to repeat viewings. I did wonder how a 5 minute book could be stretched to nearly half an hour, but the makers have added plenty of little details that, while not adding to the overall story, do expertly complement it.

The CGI woodland scenery looks fantastic - I'm not normally won over by 'graphics' but it really adds charm - and is supported by a brilliant musical score. As the dialogue (with the exception of some of the squirrel lines) follows the book, there isn't a huge amount. But what is there is done with personality and is memorable.

For those that don't know the story, its a simple but clever tale filled with imagination and bound to appeal to young kids and adults with a playful imagination.

Recommended.

Cute and enjoyable....

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 19 February 2011]

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!

Fabulous

[Zlatikevichius · 8/10 · 26 January 2021]

The only problem I have with these beautifully drawn, British animated shorts, like The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom is that they seem to me a bit too long for shorts. This wonderful tale was slightly better than Room on the Broom, thou. Searching for The Gruffalo's Child right away!

Fantastic!!

[blodi_fab · 10/10 · 13 January 2010]

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!

A cute animated short about a little mouse who outsmarts his predators.

[fantasyescapist · 20 January 2010]

This came on BBC1 on Christmas Day, and like Wallace and Gromit before it, I recorded it so it could be watched later. I've finally got around to watching it, and I was pleasantly surprised.

With a solid voice cast voicing the animals, the rhyming dialogue is sweet and never annoying.

The story of the mouse, as told by a mother squirrel to her two babies is episodic but suitably so. The jokes were funny and it was even somewhat dark in places where it needed to be.

The animation is probably not as polished as Lost and Found(2008) but has it's own caricatured, simplistic charm and is aesthetically faithful to the book(haven't read it, but have seen the cover).

Overall, an entertaining and amusing short about deception and survival done in a colourful and light way. I enjoyed it along with The First Snow of Winter, also based on a picture book, that has a similar tone, also featuring a 'big, bad' wolf. Good for young kids and the young at heart.

Very cute and beautifully done

[Rectangular_businessman · 10/10 · 15 July 2012]

"The Gruffalo" is very pretty animated short, with a beautiful visual style and a charming story, which has all the classic elements from many fairy tales and fables.

I liked a lot the aesthetic used for the characters in this short: Their cartoonish and stylish appearance made a good contrast with the realistic sceneries, resulting in something very pleasant.

The story itself was something very simple, but incredibly charming. All the characters included from this short were endearing and likable. This is a highly enjoyable animation for the whole family. I would recommend it to anyone.

The Gruffalo

[jboothmillard · 7/10 · 6 January 2012]

This short film based on the popular children's book was something I was really annoyed to miss when it was broadcast at Christmas, but when it was shown again I wasn't going to miss it again. Basically two Little Squirrels (Sam Lewis and Phoebe Givron-Taylor) are being told the story of a mouse's walk through the woods by Mother Squirrel (Helena Bonham Carter). A Mouse (James Corden) goes for a walk in the forest in order to get to the tree of acorns, and along the way he encounters predators who will want to eat him. He encounters a Fox (Tom Wilkinson), an Owl (John Hurt) and a Snake (Rob Brydon) who all invite him for a meal, the Mouse declines all of them as he knows they want to eat him. After declining he says to each enemy that he is meeting something called the Gruffalo (Robbie Coltrane), which he describes the hideous anatomy of, and he says its favourite food is based on his predator, to which they run away. The Mouse laughs to himself, knowing that there is no such thing as a Gruffalo, however he is shocked to see that the creature he has been inventing actually exists, and he wants to eat him. However the Mouse stops him, claiming that he is the scariest animal in the forest, and the Gruffalo thinking this is a joke agrees to follow him so he can prove it. The Mouse approaches each predator again, and they run away in terror seeing the big monster behind him, the Gruffalo assumes wrongly that they are running from the Mouse. After all this and the Gruffalo believes that he is indeed the scariest animal in the forest, the Mouse threatens to eat him, to which the large creature runs away, and the Mouse walks away nibbling an acorn he finds. The computer animation is really good for this simple and fun story, the younger audience will definitely have fun with the lovable Mouse, the hideous but likable Gruffalo, and the other characters as well, and the older audience will like the well known voices bringing them to life, is an easy to enjoy family fantasy. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Short Animated Film, and it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Short Animation. Very good!

I saw The Gruffalo and it looked good!

[llltdesq · 10/10 · 11 March 2014]

This short was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be spoilers ahead:

This is an excellent adaptation of a children's story about a mouse who is walking through the woods to get to a tree with acorns. It's told within a framing story of a mother squirrel telling the tale to her two children. Along the way, he outsmarts a fox, an owl and a snake who all thought the mouse looked good and invite him home for a meal.

The mouse being rather clever, he weaves a tale of a meeting with his friend, the Gruffalo, when everyone knows "there's no such thing as a Gruffalo". Everyone, that is, except for the fox, the owl, the snake-and the Gruffalo.

The mouse and the Gruffalo meet and the Gruffalo also thinks the mouse looks good, even though the mouse would scarcely make half a belch for the Gruffalo. The mouse, thinking fast on his feet, manages to snooker the Gruffalo and trick the other three all over again, as the three carnivores have met and compared notes on the mouse and his tale. Things end well for the mouse.

The voice cast is exceptional, particularly Helena Bonham Carter as the mother squirrel, James Corden as the mouse and Robbie Coltrane as the Gruffalo. This short is available on DVD and is well worth seeking out. Most highly recommended.

The art of make-believe

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 10 October 2013]

Rarely has it been displayed more entertaining and witty than in this 27-minute short film. It was released during the Christmas holidays 2009. A bit off an odd choice as there's no Christmas spirit or snowy landscapes in this one, instead a beautifully animated green forest. Mother Squirrel tells her kids a story and there's certainly something mysterious about it, just like about the whole film. Bonham Carter does a nice job voicing the narrator and it makes me want to see her in more animation. Her intonation gives the film a very unique tone, the whole thing just like the creature in the center of it are shrouded in mystery.

We see a little mouse pretending to be friends with that creature, a Gruffalo, whose favorite meal is fox, owl or snake depending on which enemy the mouse has to keep from making it their lunch. But what happens when the Gruffalo actually appears? All in all it's an entertaining half-hour feature and I'm okay with it being nominated for an Oscar. I'm not sure if it's better than the winner "The Lost Thing", but it definitely made a good watch. It's a bit of very a modern fable on the David-Golitah metaphor and the rhymes included and recited by Bonham Carter occasionally reminded me of the old Dr. Seuss animation.

Perfect adaptation to the book

[krkmtchll-335-694437 · 10/10 · 6 April 2012]

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).

Ingenious story for children

[maxikompel · 6/10 · 3 June 2011]

The Gruffalo is a short for children, that has a very "preety" plot and story, it has some parts of funny jokes. It's simply about a little mouse who is treating to survive in the jungle, i really like its character and its "personality" (he is very very funny). For the ones who want celebrities the voices of some characters are: Helena Bonham Carter, John Hurt and Tom Wilkinnson. Helena is my favorite actress but it don't really care in this short because her appearance is almost unnoticed. I won't tell you anymore so you can see it. I recommend it for children and i give it a 6. Greetings, I hope you like it. By maxi0305

Too short perhaps, but superb all the same

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 8 January 2011]

I absolutely loved The Gruffalo. It is a little too short, but all the same it is still superb. The animation is beautiful, very true to the illustrations of the book, plus the characters are well modelled and move convincingly and the backgrounds and colours are ravishing. The story is cute and charming, simple it is, but simple as in a good way. The dialogue is always amusing, it is done in rhyme and bounces along with no problem at all. The pace is brisk and the characters like the story are simple but still engaging. The voice cast are all solid across the board as well. So overall, just superb, if it had been a tad longer it would have been perfection. 9/10 Bethany Cox

A pleasant half hour cartoon that should please most children.

[Hellmant · 6/10 · 23 February 2011]

'THE GRUFFALO': Three Stars (Out of Five)

The longest of the Oscar animated short films this year, this one is a thirty minute adaptation of a children's book (of the same name) written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. The film was adapted by Donaldson, Jakob Schuh and Max Lang. It was directed by Schuh and Lang as well. It features the voice talents of Helena Bonham Carter, James Corden, Tom Wilkinson, John Hurt, Robbie Coltrane and others. It tells the story of a mouse (Corden) who outwits a fox (Wilkinson), an owl (Hurt) and a snake (Roby Brydon), who are ready to eat him, by making up a more frightening creature called a 'gruffalo' to scare them with. He then is forced to outwit the very creature he thought he invented (Coltrane) upon running into it. The story is told by a mother squirrel (Carter) to her children. It originally aired on UK television in December of 2009 (which makes me wonder how it was still eligible for an Oscar nomination but I guess the same rules don't apply for short films as features). The film itself is charming and pleasant but certainly nothing groundbreaking or memorable. The animation is pretty basic and the story is routine kid's fare. It is a pleasant half hour cartoon that should please most children though, just not anything I'd expect to be up for an Oscar nomination.

Watch our review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBqNUf10kuk

James Corden is awful

[mikey79 · 4/10 · 6 July 2021]

I knew I hated the voice the second I heard it - the mouse is played by Corden. Awful.

A simple enjoyable story told in a very effective and enjoyable way

[bob the moo · 19 January 2010]

Having narrowly avoided a predator herself, a mother squirrel calms the nerves of her two young children by telling them a story of a plucky young mouse who travels deep into the woods in search of food only to find predators at every turn ready to trick him into becoming their next meal.

While the satellite channels have pretty much taken away the "big movie premiere" as an event on BBC at Christmas time, the BBC still have their usual weapons by their sides to ensure that people looking for easy festive distraction know they can come to them. As a result we do get several episodes of Eastenders but it does also mean special films of existing shows (such as Dr Who etc) which sometimes can be quite good, but also animated programmes. The usual big winner that everyone thinks of is of course Wallace & Gromit, but this year there was none of them but there was this charming little film sitting comfortably just before the end of David Tenant on Doctor Who.

Based on the very successful children's book (which I've not read), the rhyming dialogue of the mouse's speech appears to have made it as has the look and feel of the film since the animation is very close to what I have seen of the book. In terms of substance it is very simple but effective – you know where it is going but it has an easy delight to it that one cannot help enjoying. I'm not sure if it is from the book or not but I felt that the narrative device of having us be told the mouse's story via another story teller (and being able to see her audience while also be the audience ourselves) really did work to make it a bit more engaging. The cast is fairly packed with famous voices as well (and not just for UK viewers, which is normally how it works). Although I personally am yet to see what everyone likes about him, Corden does a good job as the mouse – despite the feeling that the BBC were putting him in everything (this was his first of three appearances at Christmas). He is quite restrained in his delivery, which suits the mouse and the clever little rhyming style of his speech. Carter's narrator is balanced and responsible, with Brydon, Hurt and Wilkinson doing good work in small bits as the predators. Coltrane is the only one that really makes an impression though, since his voice is quite distinctive and he plays up the gruff aspect of it. In terms of the stars, they are all good without being so good that it explains their involvement, but I suppose it helps the film and also represented an easy time commitment from them.

What really made it for me though was the animation. The film looks great but it does it in a way that never feels showy or like it is being done for the sake of it. In terms of bringing it to the screen it somehow manages to be impressive and detailed but yet also keep the rounded colourful nature that one would expect with a children's animated book. To me, the animation did more than the star names in terms of creating the characters and while the casting is a coup that catches the eye, the animators deserve a lot of credit as well.

Overall, a charming little delight – nothing to blow you away or having you rolling like Wallace & Gromit perhaps, but a simple enjoyable story told in a very effective and enjoyable way.

Perfect adaptation of this wonderful book

[jatmacleod · 10/10 · 28 March 2020]

Simply brilliant, it's a perfect telling from one of the best children's books ever. Great casting and performances from an amazing cast considering this is a children's story

A really complete animated short film.

[punishmentpark · 8/10 · 15 November 2015]

A fun children's animated movie, and certainly not too long. The story seemed familiar in some way, but of the Gruffalo I never heard before. They didn't mean Mark Ruffalo meeting the Grinch, right?

The animation style is charming, the characters work pretty good and the story unfolds cleverly, with distinct attention to many details. The ending had escaped me for a while, but I was able to look it up.

A great introduction to the many monsters of cinema for children, should they be interested. One nephew couldn't get enough of this. Me neither, really.

8 out of 10.

The Gruffalo

[CinemaSerf · 7/10 · 14 February 2024]

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.

perfect book illustration

[NijazBaBs · 10/10 · 15 June 2021]

One more good cartoon. Simple, good for kids, magical, enjoyable, relaxing, not time waster. High presence of nature. Good sounds. Easy to understand. Inspirational. Inspires us to love nature more and maybe even do something about it. Similar to video games and encyclopedias.

Fantastic Family Movie

[stonerjenn · 10/10 · 17 September 2018]

Whole family loves this movie and 'The Gruffalo's Child'.

You'll taste good on a slice of bread

[katie-40870 · 10/10 · 22 April 2019]

Great book adaption with a great story line and just a little bit scary for the kiddos. Lovely voice selection

Great animation, nice rendering, but the moral: Dishonesty

[tony-ganner · 5/10 · 7 July 2012]

A well made recreation of the book, very well animated, great style, well expressed. But the moral of the story, is that dishonesty is the best approach to survival.

Frankly, considering it's aimed at children of a highly susceptible age to such influences, the fact that this is well made horrifies me.

The author's intent was to create a children's book without purpose, at least I hope, but the result is something incredibly damaging to our society.

If you're going to censor what your children watch, I could name a hundred movies full of hardcore blood and violence that would give them a far better moral education.

Hell, Watership Down may have been brutal and had me cowering behind the sofa once a week in my years as a toddler, but at least it had integrity, and a point other than existing.

I'll give it a 5. 10 for visual quality, 1 for purpose/story.

Superb Animation!

[ichocolat · 15 September 2010]

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!

Child's Christmas classic

[greyKbarclay · 8/10 · 25 December 2023]

A fun little animated short to have on in the background on Christmas morning, simply something for the children to listen to as they open their presents. It's inspiration comes on the form of a classic child's book, something that they first learn to read in the early days of their education. I can distinctly remember reading The Gruffalo while I was at school, and the BBC short film manages to actually capture the details of the book while still making it interesting for young audiences to watch. The animation style also means that this film is appropriately scary for young children, especially when the actual Gruffalo enters the scene. And Helen Bonham Carter had the most perfect fit narration.

The triumph of imagination over threat.

[nancyldraper · 8/10 · 28 September 2018]

The triumph of imagination over threat. A well known child's book by Julia Donaldson brought to full life. Beautifully animated, filling out the whimsy behind the words. Favourite actors lending their voice talents. Rene Aubry's music captures the tone of the story perfectly. Wit, texture and warmth, well worthy of the prestigious award attention given it. I give this film an 8 (clever) out of 10. {Animated Short}