A One Mann’s Movies review of “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” (2024).
As I’ve said many times before, Christmas is almost a movie-free zone for me as the focus is on family-time: cinema trips are off the table and the TV is (largely) off. So, the BBC’s big Christmas Day teatime ratings buster, “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” was not watched at the time. Indeed, with catching up on all the other movie fare at the cinema, it’s taken a back seat until now. But it was worth the wait. Even though I’m not a mad-fan of stop-motion animation, this was high class entertainment from Aardman.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” Plot Summary:
The evil penguin, Feathers McGraw, is safely incarcerated in ‘prison’ (the zoo!). Meanwhile, Wallace has extended his inventing work to Gromit’s prize and joy… his garden. He presents his voice-controlled (LOL) automated helper-gnome Norbot to ‘assist’ with the garden maintenance. But as any tech-savvy person knows, home automation systems can be at risk from hackers….
Certification:
UK: U; US: PG. (From the BBFC web site: “Threat, violence, rude humour”.)
Talent:
Starring: Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, Reece Shearsmith, Diane Morgan, Adjoa Andoh, Muzz Khan, Lenny Henry.
Directed by: Merlin Crossingham & Nick Park.
Written by: Mark Burton. (From a story by Nick Park & Mark Burton.)
Running Time: 1h 22m.
“Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” Summary:
Positives:
- 82 minutes of compact brilliance.
- Lots of really funny detail and cinema-references.
Negatives:
- I mean, it’s almost 5 stars for me, except that I’m not a great fan of stop-motion animation… don’t know why, I’m just not.
Review of “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”:
Such clever comedy.
When you spent years and years making something, at 24 excrutiatingly slow frames per second, you can afford to focus on the detail. Aardman Animation do exactly that. There is just so much detail etched into each loving frame that I reckon you could watch this film a dozen times and still mine more comedy out of it. Some of the scenes are almost subliminal, such as the signs for “Yorkshire Border: Keep Out” and on the other side “Lancashire Border: No, You Keep Out”. It’s so cleverly done.
For any film to make an emotional connection with you as the viewer, you have to empathise with one of the characters. Here, that character is Gromit. Mute and helpless to counter the mad inventions of Wallace, you can’t help but feel for the mutt and get exasperated along with him. A brilliant bit of character development.
Film memes.
The movie is also a mine of comedic cinema references. In this one, there is a perfect take off of the finale of “The Italian Job” but with a barge instead of a coach. I also spotted nods to “Cape Fear”, “The Shawshank Redemption”, “The Matrix”; Bond (specifically, Blofeld’s cat!) and “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”. There are probably loads of others.
Who’s it for?
At just 82 compact minutes, this is a film that you would imagine is aimed squarely at the junior audience. But interestingly, when confronted with the option of watching it again, all of the grandkids turned it down in favour of watching something else instead. So I actually think that the preferred audience for this one are appreciative adults who get all of the humour.
RIP Peter Sallis
The voice of Wallis will be forever associated with the late Peter Sallis who died in 2017. Sallis’s last feature-length turn was back in 2005 for “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”. Ben Whitehead did one of the voices on that film but then took over from Sallis as the voice of Wallace when Sallis retired, due to ill health, in 2010. Whitehead does an excellent impersonation.
Elsewhere in the voice cast, it’s also great to hear the unmistakable tones of the great Peter Kay playing Chief Inspector Mackintosh.
Summary Thoughts on “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”
Another ‘cracking’ outing for Wallace and Gromit.
For British viewers, “Vengeance Most Fowl” (together with all the other Wallace and Gromit films) is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer. Otherwise, it is also available on Netflix.
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0ZGf2B01uU.
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