Transparent heart icon with white outline and + sign.

Life's busy, read it when you're ready!

Create a free account to save articles for later, keep track of past articles you’ve read, and receive exclusive access to all RP resources.

White magnifying glass.

Search thousands of RP articles

Equipping Christians to think, speak, and act

Open envelope icon with @ symbol

Get Articles Delivered!

Equipping Christians to think, speak, and act delivered direct to your Inbox!

A A
By:

Wallace and Gromit: vengeance most fowl

Animated
2024 / 79 minutes
RATING: 8/10

The penguin is back! Feathers McGraw has been sent to jail – or, rather, the Zoo – as punishment for his attempted theft of the Blue Diamond, back in The Wrong Trousers (the second of Nick Park’s “Wallace and Gromit” claymation, stop-motion short films). But how can Feathers escape from behind bars?

Well, it turns out it’s Wallace to the rescue… sort of. Wallace and Gromit are the reason Feathers was caught in the first place in the previous film, and Feathers wants revenge. When Wallace’s latest and greatest invention, a robot garden gnome helper named Norbot (short for “Nifty Odd-jobbing Robot”), has turned into a business opportunity. The little gizmo can make short work of any garden tasks, and Wallace has been hiring him out to all his impressed neighbors. The little guy does so well, he gets featured on the news… where he comes to the attention of Feathers McGraw.

Turns out, Wallace made Norbot with a variety of possible settings, ranging from “Good” (his default factory setting) all the way down to “Evil.” Feathers manages to hack Norbot and tune him to his Evil setting, so the little gnome turns imp, makes an army of cloned Norbots, and then their garden work becomes a cover for stealing all the necessary tools they need to set Feathers free.

Wallace and Gromit have always had more gadgets than the most bombastic Bond film, and this time the homage has gone even further, with Feathers doing a great rendition of the very campiest kind of Bond villain, complete with secret submarine lair. This is one mom and dad will get and enjoy more than their kids, though I think boys will like it too. I’m not sure about the girls though – the black-eyed evil Norbot might be too creepy for their liking.

Cautions

Early on there is a brief scene of Wallace getting bathed and dressed for the morning, ably assisted by a half dozen of his machines, one of which tosses him out of his bath down a transparent water slide. We get a three glimpses – a millisecond each – of Wallace’s naked backside sliding past us in the waterslide tube. It’s all just a pinkish blur, though it’s easy to imagine a boy slowing it down to see what he could see, and even at half speed (which the Netflix controls allow) it is about a half second of naked claymation butt sliding by.

The one other instance of potty humor is a scene in which Wallace accidentally knocks away the outerwalls of an outhouse, leaving behind a man on the commode, who is barely exposed – his sweater covers most of him – though quite shocked.

Someone says “heck” and “butt.”

Conclusion

There is a moral to this store: don’t trust tech too much, cause it might turn on you. That might not sound all that profound, but when you consider how smartphones have taken over our lives, with not nearly enough conscious though on our parts, the idea that some tech might well have an “evil” setting shouldn’t seem outrageous.

Overall, though, this is a tamer, funnier, more family-friendly version of James Bond adventure. It does have its tense moments – the mood music will definitely set your littles on edge – and evil Norbot’s black eyes are disturbing. So, best for 10 and up, unless your kids are made of sterner stuff. Very fun!

Enjoyed this article?

Get the best of RP delivered to your inbox every Saturday for free.



Red heart icon with + sign.
Animated, Movie Reviews

Wallace and Gromit: four short films

Animated / Comedy 1989-2008 / 114 minutes RATING: 8/10 It's been 35 years now, since student filmmaker Nick Park crafted his leading man out of clay. He made Wallace lovable and oh so inventive, but also more than a bit thick. Then Park carved up Gromit, Wallace's loyal, long-suffering dog who can't quite manage to keep Wallace out of trouble entirely, but who does manage to keep his master from getting in too deep. Wallace might be a brilliant inventor, but Gromit is the wise one. Since his first stop-motion claymation film , A Grand Day Out (where the duo managed to make it to the moon). Park has featured this duo in three more shorts, a couple of feature films, they've won a few Oscars, and spawned spin off TV shows (Shaun the Sheep being the most notable). Not bad for a dim bulb and his dog. Part of the charm here is that the two of them do care for each other. Of course, that doesn't mean Wallace knows how to express his affection. He'll build an automatic patting machine, for example, rather than give Gromit the scratch behind the ears that his canine companion really wants. And when Gromit wants to go for "walkies," like every dog does, Wallace builds a set of "techno trousers" that he can attach Gromit's leash to, so the robot pants can take Gromit for his walk. Really Wallace, really? Gromit can't even talk, but the expressive dog sure can communicate. (They actually write dialogue for Gromit, even though he isn't going to speak it, so the animators will know how to shape Gromit's expressions.) Right behind this duo, third billing goes to the inventions – Wallace has more gadgets than James Bond, and they're twice as cool. He's built a machine that automatically throws him out of bed, sliding Wallace down a chute so he can land at his breakfast table, where another machine dresses him and yet another makes his breakfast. This process rarely goes off without a hitch, and the malfunctions are as fun as the successes. Another of Wallace's crazy contraptions is a knitting machine that just needs you to pop a sheep in one end, and a sweater will come out the other. Park has made four short claymation Wallace and Gromit films in all. A Grand Day Out 1989 / 24 minutes Wallace and Gromit need a vacation, and when Wallace discovers they are out of cheese, they decide the best getaway destination is the moon, what with all its bounty of green cheese. How are they going to get there? By building a rocket ship in the basement, of course! The Wrong Trousers 1993 / 30 minutes Wallace and Gromit’s happy home life is disrupted by a mysterious penguin who rents one of their rooms. Soon the shifty-eyed flightless foul is trying to replace Gromit in Wallace’s affections. But never fear, the loyalty of this tried and true dog does win out in the end. The moral of this tale? Either never neglect your dog, or don’t trust shifty-eyed penguins. Fun and silly, it won an Oscar. They even made a sequel, the feature film Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. A Close Shave 1995 / 31 minutes To make ends meet, Wallace and Gromit have started their own window-washing business. A wool merchant, Wendolene Ramsbottom, ask them to clean her shop windows, and, of course, Wallace falls in love. There are two mysteries to solve: first, where has the country's wool gone? and, second, what or who is destroying the interior of Wallace and Gromit's house? (One hint: this is where Shaun the Sheep makes his very first appearance.) A Matter of Loaf and Death 2009 / 29 minutes Wallace and Gromit are now bakers, and great at it. It doesn't hurt their business, either, that all the other bakers in town are being bumped off one by one. Wallace is in love again, this time with Piella Bakewell, the spokesmodel for Bake-O-Lite breads. The ever loyal Gromit gets stuck doing Wallace's work in the bakery, even as he's also trying to prevent the two of them from becoming the "cereal" killer's next victims. The description pitched this as a "who-doughnut" in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock, and I was skeptical. How could they pull that off in claymation. But they did! Cautions While A Grand Day Out would be safe for all ages, The Wrong Trousers has a somewhat creepy villain that pre-school set could find a bit disturbing. The last two films amp up the tension more, with first sheep, and then bakers, getting killed. One baker even gets killed off screen but then falls back into the shot, face first into a cake. It's all claymation, so, not at all realistic (and there is no blood or gore). But it underscores how these aren't really intended as family fare. Some animation is for kids, with some jokes for adults shown in. I'd say this is for adults, and some older kids  – 10 and up – could enjoy it too. Language concerns would be limited to a few uses of "heck" and "flipping" and I think an "oh my gracious." Finally, in A Matter of Loaf and Death,  a bomb blows a hole in Wallace's pants, and we see a brief shot of Wallace's naked, claymation butt. Again, the claymation aspect of it means this is far from titillating, though it might get little boys tittering. Conclusion The appeal here is the spectacle of all of Wallace's crazy inventions, and the simple beautiful loyalty of these two friends. It's clever, and might even inspire some kids to give stop motion filming a try. I remember making one, not with clay, but with a pair of my shoes doing a dance across the floor. There are so many tools online to get an inventive kid going, and this might be just the thing to inspire them. That said, these are not all for the very young. The Brits rate these as 7+ but I'd say that especially A Matter of Loaf and Death should be 10 and up. For a taste of what Wallace and Gromit are all about, check out this compilation of their "cracking contraptions" –  8 two-minute videos of Wallace at his most inventive. ...