‘Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’ Review: Cracking Family Fun A Long Time Coming
Thirty-one years after The Wrong Trousers, Aardman Animations have released a direct sequel with Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Continuing the trend of family films going back to trimming extraneous fat and focusing on entertainment, the gags come thick and fast, backed by lovingly-produced stop-motion animation.
For those unfamiliar, Wallace is an inventor from the English county of Lancashire, living with his dog and best pal Gromit. Their madcap adventures have shown it’s not just Wallace’s inventions that are beyond belief, but the people as well.
It’s Looney Tunes for Brits, who have taken the pair as a national treasure – to the point of mourning props destroyed in fires, and fearing the shutdown of Aardman Animations due to clay shortages. Their latest film not only fits right into the series quite comfortably, but may be their best yet (an argument I won’t be settling here).
Vengeance Most Fowl has Wallace’s latest invention being a robotic garden gnome that can handle all his gardening tasks. While that alone could be enough for a plot, or even a new villain, it’s an older one who takes advantage of the situation.
Feathers McGraw, last featured in The Wrong Trousers, seizes his chance at revenge in a scheme that has a few twists. If you’re taken by surprise, it’s admittedly most likely due to the writers giving him a few coincidences and contrivances- taking him from master crook to a supervillain with the power of “the plot says so.”
This minor point isn’t enough to dock points. It’s more than acceptable for a family film, and we’re suspending disbelief enough for the visual gags, not to mention McGraw being able to do what he can without thumbs.
Some are heralding the story as a great piece of anti-AI warning, and avoiding an over-reliance on tech in general. This is a bit of a stretch, as the day is saved by technology, and the plot is a vehicle for chaos and laughs. If there is any overarching theme, it is about avoiding dehumanization through technology, but it’s still a reach even then.
The film is just straight fun. The plot is more simple than the likes of Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and could have come out of the 1990s era of The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave. Simple is not bad of course, and allows more chance for gags to play out.
The series usually pumps out plenty of jokes-per-minute, though never as thick and fast as the likes of The Naked Gun, Airplane!, and Top Secret. Vengeance Most Fowl still keeps the laughs coming at a nigh-constant pace, and almost reaches the machine-gun rate of the aforementioned between animation, witty writing, background gags, and dad jokes.
Dad jokes, I may add, that do warrant a laugh rather than a groan (yes I did like the fact I got socks for Christmas, why do you ask?)
Even jokes that should only make sense to those born and raised in jolly old England usually have another layer to be funny to the rest of the world, and even then those jokes are a few among many.
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Funny business aside, Aardman Animation once again triumphs in stop-motion animation, augmented by other techniques as in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Gromit was already a masterclass in conveying emotion through subtle movements and expressions, conveying all-too-familiar frustrations that anyone can empathize with.
In fact, some even took to X to rant about Wallace’ focus on inventing once again being to Gromit detriment. Don’t worry, the pooch has been through worse, and the pair reconcile at the end.
If Gromit showed how much could be conveyed with so little, McGraw takes it even further. His almost expressionless face demands even more care to body language, which is executed flawlessly.
He always carried and shot as though he was 7 feet tall and intimidating, which carries through to Vengeance Most Fowl– an eerie calm that suggests a boiling fury under the surface. Yet this time, he has been given a bit more personality, conveying his ego and malice. Not so much character development, just simply the film being longer and allowing more time for characters to express themselves.
Of course, the human characters are as delightfully full-bodied as the animal characters, with Wallace running his usual arsenal of blind optimism, delight, panic, dread, and a little sadness. The other human characters almost serve as another prop in the plot, and the plot with the police borders on a C-plot at best, but they didn’t need to be any more than that.
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It should be noted Wallace’s voice actor, formerly Peter Sallis and now Ben Whitehead since 2009, has voiced him in smaller projects, but this is his first major film with the character. The fact I forgot Sallis has retired and died should be a testament at how well Whitehead fills the role, making Wallace easy to love, laugh at, and empathize with.
The robotic gnome tips the line between funny and annoying, but that rather seems to be the point. You could probably fit its dialogue onto a napkin, but the only way you could expand it would be to give it more of a personality, which in turn would run the gamut of the usual “robot develops a personality” tropes we’ve seen.
In any case, it would also defeat the point of it being a robot, rather than a human being. Its the Golem, HAL, the brooms from Fantasia. It’s just chipper about following instructions, and by the time it gets on your nerves, the film is done.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is another cracking success from Aardman Animations. While other family films from far larger studios seem to struggle to only be good entertainment, the film is a neat little package that ticks all the boxes.
Young and old, long-time fans or first timers dragged into it, British or the rest of the world- as long as you know what to expect, there’s no complaints here lad.
NEXT: ‘Elevation’ Review: It’s A Movie With Anthony Mackie, But Can He Take It To New Heights?
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