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!