Beautiful, moving film.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This Oscar nominated animated short is based on the children's book by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Its a slight tale of a witch and a cat on an adventure that attracts other animals to the annoyance of the moggy to join them on the broom hence the title, Room on the broom.The animation short is brought from the same team that did The Gruffalo and they managed to get a starry cast of vocalists from Simon Pegg, Gillian Anderson, Rob Brydon, Sally Hawkins, David Walliam and Timothy Spall.The story is likely to be enjoyed by smaller children than families unlike the Aardman animated short. I actually felt listless watching this having realised that I was not the target audience but the kids liked it.

This short has been nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be mild spoilers ahead: This short is, at first glance, nothing special. The animation is good but standard. This is based on a children's book and was adapted by the author. The voice work is good, the story is good and it's basically a very charming and entertaining short. It doesn't start out as if it will be anything extraordinary. Just a nice short aimed at kids.It starts out slow and builds as it goes. By the end, I realized that it was a more substantive piece than I'd expected. The end is really very good and Timothy Spall brings just the right touch to the dragon. That and the narration are the most impressive voice performances, though all the work is good. The principal theme is the value of kindness, friendship and teamwork, as the animals have to work together to save the witch from the dragon.This short has been released on a DVD with some extras. The DVD is very nice, the short is well worth watching and both are recommended.

Sometimes it's hard to go back and watch something through the 'eyes of a child'. If you are over 15 years of age, this animated, short movie may not hold your attention at all and that's fine. Its aiming audience are children and I believe they'll think it's perfect. The story is not complicated - anyone can understand it and the main idea in it is friendship. There are repetitive dialogues with few alterations and everything is rhymed. The main characters are a witch and a cat... At least at the beginning. (: For those of you who don't know, the movie is based on a book. I will end this review by recommending it to all, no matter how big or small and whoosh! I am gone. (:

From the same team that did the last two Gruffalo films comes this season's animation for Christmas Day. The films fit into the slot traditionally filled by the Wallace and Gromit films and, although none of them (this one included) have ever got close to that standard, they do at least do the job for the audience and time they are on. In this film a cat and a witch are helped to locate some missing items but end up taking on passengers each time – all well and good perhaps but they do not know that a dragon is stalking the witch for his tea.The music and the animation pretty much get you in the mood from the very start as they are slight, amusing in tone and non-threatening. The narration from Simon Pegg is good as it delivers the nicely paced gentle rhymes which form the structure of the film; they are repetitive in nature but this is the point of them and it works well. As the content is pretty simple, the animation adds plenty of amusing and funny moments whether in actual gags or in terms of little flourishes or moments of characterization. This is the main body of the film and it is this that helps it fill the time and stops it feeling too slow. The animation also makes the characters work because, as famous as the cast-list is, nobody really makes an impact beyond Pegg – it is the physical actions and reactions of the characters that make them work.It isn't amazingly smart or hilarious but it is gently funny and warming while drawing you in with the animation and the nice tone and rhythm of the delivery. A good family short film for Christmas Day and will have legs beyond that very specific time slot.