| Worth seeing: | for the sharp cultural references in this welcome follow-up to the classic Wrong Trousers |
| Director: | Merlin Crossingham, Nick Park |
| Featuring: | Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Reece Shearsmith, Adjoa Andoh, Diane Morgan, John Sparkes, Lauren Patel, Lenny Henry, Muzz Khan |
| Length: | 79 minutes |
| Certificate: | U |
| Country: | UK |
| Released: | 18th December 2024 |
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Many years ago, an evil penguin, Feathers McGraw, misused a pair of eccentric inventor Wallace’s motorised trousers to steal a valuable diamond – but was caught by Wallace’s trusty dog Gromit.
Feathers McGraw was jailed indefinitely – in the penguin enclosure at the local zoo – from where he has been plotting his escape – and his revenge – ever since.
Wallace has, in the meantime, been testing his latest invention – a garden gnome called Norbot, which uses artificial intelligence to help out around the house and garden. Norbot becomes such a local sensation that everyone wants him working at their home – but before long, things are going missing and the finger of suspicion falls on Wallace.
The local police believe it’s an open-and-shut case but Gromit knows that it’s not that simple and he sets out to prove that Feathers McGraw is getting up to his old tricks again.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
Many parents sitting down to enjoy the latest instalment of Wallace & Gromit with their own children won’t even have been born when the madcap inventor and his trusty dog first graced our screens in A Grand Day Out, visiting the moon in a home-made space rocket.
In the intervening thirty five years, we’ve had Oscar-winning short and feature-length animations featuring the pair – usually involving Gromit trying to fix the problems caused when Wallace’s increasingly hairbrained inventions invariable get out of hand.
This is the first time we’ve had a character making a come-back – as the title suggests, Feathers McGraw – who disguised himself as a chicken to carry out his first dastardly crime in The Wrong Trousers – is after vengeance against the duo who foiled his plan and put him in jail. And to misquote another long-running animated series, Scooby Doo, he’d have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for the meddling mutt.
Some of the earlier Wallace & Gromit films are a pitch-perfect study of genre films, adopting classic horror traits throughout, but the feature-length films tend to resort more to standard storytelling techniques; the narrative here follows a fairly predictable arc. But the beauty is in the detail – character names, humorous signs on walls, elements that you could quite easily miss, without it really having an impact on the story.
There are cultural references – specific film references – many of which will make you feel clever when you recognise them – adding to the sense of enjoyment.
This is the first outing of Wallace And Gromit since the death of Peter Sallis, but the voice of Wallace is recreated almost imperceptibly by Ben Whitehead and Peter Kay is another entertaining addition to the team, voicing up the pompous police chief, who is more interested in his own reputation than justice.
Vengeance Most Fowl is not the best in the canon but it is a hugely effective piece of family-friendly entertainment that will delight young audiences and their parents for generations to come.