People are voting emotionally.

Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Before the "Wallace & Gromit" series and "Chicken Run", Nick Park made a splendid debut with "Creature Comforts", in which several animals in a zoo explain how unhappy they are to be in cages. If the cartoon is goofy, then they play it to good effect, and it has a good message. I've always thought that Nick Park not only has great ideas for cartoons, but that his claymation style is quite neat, with the bug eyes and rectangular mouths.Other interesting cartoons of this style include not only the "Wallace & Gromit" series, but also "Wat's Pig" and "Ident". The last two are fascinating, if bizarre.

Fairing only 32 minutes long, I was worried that these shorts would be cheap, unexciting, and overall just a few animals talking about life at a local Zoo. While I had no problems with this, I wanted more … and guess what? This short DVD provided it. Not only does it give us that unquenchable desire to see British animals talking about life in a Zoo, but it gives us three more additional shorts which only broaden the power that is known as Nick Park. From those little animals to dynamic storytelling to becoming a staple in the stop-motion animation field, you can literally see the impact of these shorts in today's cinema. From just a short 32 minutes, I witnessed the power of Tim Burton (apparently borrowed quite a bit from Park on his film The Nightmare Before Christmas) in a little short called "Not Without My Handbag", the creation of life on this planet (as seen through Park's eyes) and even a little ditty about the Middle Ages. All of these continue to prove that Park was developing powerful film-making well before his time. For those that perhaps haven't been introduced to a show called Wallace & Gromit, I would highly suggest seeing where Park's Claymation has gone from these creative beginnings, but for those that want to see his early efforts (which were rewarded with an Oscar!) , than I suggest Creature Comforts. More of a observation on our society than just some random cartoons jumping on screen, we watch as animals in a Zoo react the same as we would if we were caged daily (as if we aren't already). The short that impressed me the most was "Not Without My Handbag" where the simple misunderstanding of a contract pulled a darkened cloud over a family. It is deeply disturbing, but powerfully imaginative and vibrant. The final short also impressed me with its powerful references to the "Creation". Simply titled "Adam", we watch as this naked man tries to adapt to living alone on a unexplored planet. If the religious references to Adam & Eve weren't blazin enough, we are privy to a final moment where we think "Adam" will finally get the companion that he deserves … only to find out it is something that nobody expected. Park has this amazing ability to take images from our day to day society and juxtaposition them into the world of the imaginative and unbelievable. The ability to give these Zoo creatures enough life to feel just like normal humans while being caged behind bars is incredible. I do not believe anyone has come close to recreating the effect that Nick Park has done. The closest that comes to mind is Brad Bird with his recent creation of the superhero family dynamic in The Incredibles. That was smart and enlightening at the same time. That is what Park creates. His animation is not just creatures falling on the floor for young children to react, but instead intelligent, rather symbolic, metaphors about life, which appeal to both children and adults. To create those characters that are able to cross that boundary from children to adult is difficult, but Park seems to have accomplished it with the greatest of ease. Overall, I thought this was a great introduction to the work of master animator Nick Park. As I patiently wait for his Wallace & Gromit film release, it is fun to revisit his early work and witness a bold new birth of animation. I am surprised more films haven't been released using this style of cartoonery. In a way I am happy because I would hate to see too much over-dominate the Hollywood community, but we need to see more than what has been handed to us in the theaters. With duds like Madagascar and Home on the Range, I would have thought that Park's work would be the logical next step, but I am always wrong. I applaud your work Park, and suggest that anyone willing to laugh, chuckle, and be entertained for a great 32 minutes should check out this DVD!My favorites from great to least:1. "Not Without My Handbag" 2. "Creature Comforts" 3. "Wat's Pig" 4. "Adam"Grade: ***** out of *****

If there's any single short out there that marked a real defining point for those claymation whiz kids down at Aardman, I'd say 'Creature Comforts' is the one. The debut piece of the now legendary Nick Park (who'd go on to create a series of captivating short films featuring a certain cheese-loving inventor and his well-read canine cohort, whose names I'm sure you don't need me to spell out for you here), it's now a widely-regarded classic in stop motion animation history, and there are some pretty good reasons for that. No other Aardman project, great as they frequently are, has managed to combine such high levels of whimsy, charm and poignancy quite as deftly as this one. The bright idea of taking real-life recordings with members of the public and aligning them with talking plasticine animals in the style of vox pop interviews (in this case, zoo animals commenting on their general living conditions, as extracted from discussions with residents of retirement homes, council housing and student halls) was so fresh, so ingenious and so delightful that the five minute running time designated here simply wasn't enough. It was a concept which begged to be extended, and it spawned a much-deserved franchise in the early 90s with TV ads for the UK's Heat Electric and, more recently, a long-awaited TV series in 2003. A franchise which in turn helped to establish Aardman's now-firm reputation for colourful, offbeat cosiness, as opposed to some of the more downbeat and sombre shorts they'd been working on for much of the 80s (many of which were good enough in their own right - Peter Lord's 'Going Equipped', which debuted alongside 'Creature Comforts' in the Channel 4 series 'Lip Synch, in particular is more than worth a look).Compared to a lot of the output that followed it, the animation here may look a little primitive by today's standards (the depressed gorilla, for example, is quite clearly riddled with the animator's finger prints), but it's an easily forgivable fault, and doesn't detract from the visual joy that this short is swimming in from start to finish. Get a load of all those wonderful sight gags - the elderly bush-baby's gigantic magnified pupils, the unidentified birds with beaks held on by elastic bands (the antics of the non-speaking characters hovering about in the background have always been something to keep an eye out for in the 'Creature Comforts' realm), the treadmill-running terrapins, the dozens of shrieking, flailing baby rodents…all of it gold. Earning Nick Park an Oscar in 1990 for his efforts, it's endearing and comical to the bone - and yet there's also a mild tinge of sadness to it that I doubt 'Creature Comforts' would have been nearly as memorable without. For all the quirky cuteness that those clay-built critters possess, the anguish of a few of the original speakers remains persistent in their voices, and shines through in their pertaining characters quite dynamically. Most of the animals, it would seem, are perfectly contented with their lives in captivity, but there are a few who feel the sting of alienation, the homesick wild cat from Brazil being the standout personality on this one - the high range of exaggerated mannerisms that Park uses to bring him to life are unforgettable.A lovely film and a wonderful concept, what makes 'Creature Comforts' such a striking experience is, in part, how it touches upon some of the helplessness and frustrations of having to live in a world you feel out of place in. It's also a whole lot of fun too.Grade: A

This is one of the films you can watch ten times in a row and still laugh your butt off every time you see it. I believe, they tried to let animals in a zoo speak out how foreigners might feel about Europe. So, this short makes you think a little. But above all, it makes you laugh a lot! The ice bears are so sympathetic, but the Brazilian puma (or whatever he is) is definitely the funniest. He should get a series of his own!