4.5/5
Review by John P. Harvey.
Aardman’s first feature-length Wallace & Gromit film since The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), Vengeance Most Fowl follows the nefarious plans of Wallace and Gromit’s old antagonist from the even earlier film The Wrong Trousers (1993): the penguin Feathers McGraw.
Sentenced, in the course of The Wrong Trousers, to life imprisonment in the city zoo for his theft of the Blue Diamond, Feathers has been working on a plan to take revenge on Wallace for his capture by framing him for a series of crimes. That opportunity comes when Wallace develops an invention anathema to Gromit — one that Feathers takes remote control of.
Visually, Aardman’s stop-motion animation is second to none: its films’ characters move exactly as they would in life; the scenery and props created are appealing and often rich in meaning; no rechnical challenge seems too difficult.
Artistically, the feature-length format has allowed the studio to make Vengeance Most Fowl rich in clever plays on words, film references, “useful” inventions, and slapstick, erupting throughout a plot of rewarding complexity. The format also lets us come to better know our protagonists’ feelings: Wallace’s innocent joy in inventing, for instance, and Gromit’s feelings of being overlooked in favour of the latest “useful” gadget.
Aardman has cleverly evoked our concern for characters who are clearly not actually living to draw us in: for various reasons we care whether Wallace and Gromit succeed in overcoming the villain McGraw. (I won’t spoil it by telling you how they attempt to do so or whether they succeed.) And it offers a rich trove of surprises. Charming in its characters, its humour, and the challenges that Wallace’s successes pose for Gromit, Vengeance Most Fowl is a film not to miss.