Directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl follows Wallace (Ben Whitehead), a good-natured, eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit, his loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic beagle, on a brand new adventure. Gromit’s concern that Wallace has become over-dependent on his inventions proves justified when Wallace invents a “smart gnome” that seems to develop a mind of its own. As events spiral out of control, it falls to Gromit to put aside his qualms and battle a familiar sinister force – or Wallace may never be able to invent again.
Wallace & Gromit is one of the most beloved stop-motion animated comedy franchises ever made and was a huge part of many people’s childhoods, including my own. When it was revealed that a new Wallace & Gromit film was being made after a 16-year absence I was very excited but I became even more excited seeing it was going to be a sequel to The Wrong Trousers, which for me was my very first exposure to Wallace & Gromit as a kid and was my absolute favorite of the series. Did this sequel live up to its 31-year-old predecessor? Absolutely it did!
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is a wonderful and perfect return to the fun world of these beloved characters as well as a brilliant new adventure that is guaranteed to satisfy both old and new fans of Wallace & Gromit. This film had everything I could ever want from a Wallace & Gromit film, from the creative and hilarious humor to the light-hearted and charm-filled thrills you would expect from one of their adventures. I was smiling the moment the film started and didn’t stop smiling all the way through to the end, feeling like I was a kid again watching the original Wallace & Gromit adventures on VHS.
Much like the previous entries of the franchise, this is a full-on stop-motion animated film and it looks absolutely amazing with the modern upgrades. This film looks and feels much larger in scale, as well as smoother in motion compared to its predecessors, yet still retains the old-school charm that all the other Wallace & Gromit films had especially with its comforting and colorful visuals. I’m so glad that Nick Park and his team at Aardman Animations chose to go with the old-school stop-motion animation route for this film rather than choosing to go the full CG route as some studios have done with stop-motion because you really get to see true art and effort on screen that is rarely seen these days.
My only gripe is that I couldn’t witness this effort on the big screen but I’m instead forced to see it on streaming only here in the US, which goes to show how much American studios seem to have a complete lack of respect for stop-motion animation.
The characters are wonderfully fun as was expected and the voice cast did a fantastic job playing their parts, especially Ben Whitehead in his first full film performance as Wallace following Peter Sallis’ retirement in 2010 and passing in 2017. He may not be the original voice actor of Wallace but holy cow does he sound exactly like him, as if he was the living embodiment of Peter Sallis’ portrayal of the iconic character. Whitehead perfectly captures Wallace’s eccentric and goofy nature everyone knows and loves as he is given a highly relevant and cleverly written arc about being too dependent on technology.
Gromit doesn’t talk as usual but of course his actions and emotions are always louder than words as he remains the hero of the story and the loyal best friend that Wallace needs, even if he doesn’t necessarily deserve to have him. The two share a dynamic bond that may be frequently tested on every adventure they have but will never be broken no matter what.
We get the return of Peter Kay as the uptight and old school Chief Inspector Albert Mackintosh from “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” who as expected delivered a great performance full of British charm and humor that I missed from his previous appearance, but we get a lot more of him in this one.
This time he is joined by a plucky protégée named PC Mukherjee, who is voiced wonderfully by Lauren Patel, and is such a great new addition to the world of Wallace & Gromit.
But of course one of the most highly anticipated returning characters of this film was Feathers McGraw, the villainous penguin from The Wrong Trousers who is back for vengeance against our favorite duo. He is completely silent much like he was before, but he is still the unsettling, menacing, and scheming little bugger that he always was, remaining as one of the most entertaining yet highly underrated animated villains of all time.
For his newest scheme, he highjacks one of Wallace’s newest inventions, which is a bunch of robotic garden gnomes called Norbots, all voiced by Reece Shearsmith. These gnomes are f**king scary! They were already unsettling to begin with when you first meet them with their creepy faces and voices but when they get switched to “Evil” mode by Feathers they become total nightmare fuel with their cold dead black eyes and their maniacal personalities.
The charm-filled adventure briefly becomes a horror film every time these gnomes came on screen and it was both hilarious and terrifying. Props to Nick Park & Aardman Animations for coming up with the newest traumatizing character in a kid’s film for a whole new generation of kids to grow up with.
As with most of the Wallace & Gromit films, the plot of this one is simple and straight to the point but is packed with a great amount of humor, heart, thrills, and fun little twists that kept me hugely entertained and happy all the way through. It has all the fun jokes you’d expect from Wallace & Gromit film that come in the form of on-the-nose puns and animated slapstick comedy, but there is also a lot of subtle British humor and sneaky jokes that most American viewers will not understand but UK viewers and people educated in British humor and culture, like myself, will totally understand and laugh at. One particular joke involving a series of phone messages compiled together to make one of the most shocking sentences I’ve ever heard in a modern kids’ film had me nearly dying of laughter. Kids who watch will never understand the meaning of it but adults who listen carefully will absolutely understand what is being said and will probably react the same way I did.
The humor of Wallace & Gromit truly never misses the mark and the same can be said for the heart that definitely had me feeling emotional at times. Wallace’s over-reliance on technology is the central theme of the film presenting the argument that even though advanced technology can produce quick results it will never complete them with love or care. It’s not biased to the point where it’s claiming that technology is bad and shouldn’t be used, because the film does show that there are plenty of positives with advanced technology in small doses. It’s only when there is an over-reliance on advanced technology that can create problems as well as make you miss out on the important things in life. This is a highly relevant theme given the recent rise of AI in various industries and it makes the important distinction that technology can make life easier but not necessarily better, especially in the case of Wallace and his inventions.
The film has the same amount of fun action and thrills that we have seen in previous installments like The Wrong Trousers & The Curse of the Were-Rabbit but I like how this one manages to be unique with its story, action, and thrills due to the given narrative elements and the advances of stop-motion animation since the last installments.
Accompanying the thrills and gorgeous visuals put on display is fantastic music scored by the always amazing Lorne Balfe, who can truly do no wrong when it comes to film scores, along with Julian Nott, the original composer of all the Wallace & Gromit films. They bring in the perfect amount of whimsical energy into the score, matching it with this film’s world and tones beautifully and adding so many layers of fun to it all. There are some great renditions of some of the older themes of the previous installments including the main theme but we do also get some original music too, including a new menacing theme for Feathers as well as a song for the Norbots to sing that is creepy but catchy.
There was a huge amount of effort put into this film and in my view, this is easily the best film that Aardman Animations has put out in recent years. It’s a triumphant return for a beloved duo of characters that is guaranteed to please long-time fans as well as create new ones for a whole new generation. I’m going to give Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl an A+ = 98.
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