Although he's probably best known in the United States for Chicken Run, Nick Park first made his mark with a series of Oscar-winning shorts featuring the cheese-loving Wallace and his loyal dog Gromit. Now, for the first time, the beloved pair are appearing in their first feature-length film. Like the earlier shorts, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is one of the best animated films of all time.
For anyone unfamiliar with the pair, Wallace is an English inventor with a passion for cheese. Gromit, who never speaks, is his dog and the real brains of the pair. Where Wallace is impulsive and apt to take chances with his inventions, Gromit is always there to get him out of trouble with his common sense loyalty. Like Chicken Run their films are done with painstakingly detailed Claymation.
In the movie, Wallace and Gromit are running a humane pest control agency called Anti-Pesto. They've been kept quite busy with the upcoming Giant Vegetable Festival, which has been plagued by a horde of rabbits. Things get even dicier for the pair when Wallace hits upon the idea of using his newly invented brain-alteration device in an attempt to brainwash the bunnies into hating vegetables. When something goes wrong (as it's apt to do), Wallace inadvertently creates a were-rabbit; an enormous bunny with an immense craving for all things vegetable.
A love interest is introduced in the story as well when Wallace meets Lady Tottington (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter), the hostess of the vegetable festival. However, a rival for her affection appears in the form of Lord Quartermaine (Fiennes), an aristocrat whose idea of humane treatment is to shoot all the bunnies.
Although Wallace gets top billing, it is Gromit who is the heart of the story, as he was in their earlier films. In a recent interview, Bonham Carter compared the character of Gromit to a silent film star, and she's quite right. The animators are able to get an amazingly wide range of emotions from him using just his ears, his eyes and his brow. Apparently, before work begins on the film, the script provides Gromit with dialogue so that the animators know exactly what they need to get across from him in each scene.
The amount of detail in the movie is also truly remarkable. Somehow knowing that nearly everything you see onscreen is real and built in miniature, helps bring the movie to life. Although there is some CGI in the movie, to provide atmospheric things that couldn't be reproduced with clay, such as fog, you can still see the thumbprints on the characters. This does nothing to detract from the movie, it somehow enhances it. In any case, you can not help but be impressed by the work that went into creating this world.
Unlike the recent Corpse Bride however, the visuals here take a backseat to the characters and the jokes. The details are all there in the background, but you'll be so busy laughing and following the story that you'll only catch a glimpse of them. This is a movie that will require multiple viewings just to pick up on all the minutia in the background.
Whether this is your first introduction to Wallace & Gromit or a reintroduction to a pair of old friends, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a pure delight and the best animated movie of this or any other year, without question.
