Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl - Aardman’s Claymation Magic Returns
Deep in debt, the ever-inventive Wallace and his loyal canine companion Gromit find themselves pondering ways to settle their accounts and earn a bit of extra cash. Wallace hatches a seemingly brilliant idea: renting out an artificially intelligent garden gnome to help with yard work. The business quickly becomes profitable, much to Gromit’s dismay, who grows weary of the excessive mechanization of household chores.
News of their popular invention reaches an old acquaintance of the duo – Feathers McGraw, the penguin villain serving a life sentence at the zoo. Once, Wallace and Gromit apprehended the criminal who plotted to steal a rare blue diamond (“The Wrong Trousers”). McGraw decides to exact a dastardly revenge – to reprogram the garden gnome, seize the precious gem on his second attempt, and even frame the simple-minded Wallace.
Still from the animated film “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”
Aardman’s Past Struggles
It feels like only a decade ago, the release of a new feature film from Aardman Animations was a cause for celebration – regardless of the chosen setting or franchise. It was a given that the masters of claymation would find a way to tell a heartwarming story, pack it to the brim with references to classic cinema, and, of course, amaze with inventive action. Take, for example, “Shaun the Sheep Movie,” released just a decade ago – Aardman, without a single line of dialogue, created a touching story about the desire to escape monotonous life and presented several outstanding chases that would make silent film stars envious.
However, the mid-2010s brought change. An attempt to create a new series (“Early Man”) proved, to put it mildly, unsuccessful, followed by a period of endless sequels for Netflix that clearly paled in comparison to the originals (“Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon”). The culmination was the release of “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” after which it became impossible to ignore the studio’s crisis. Consider this: the daring first installment, inspired by war films about escaping from concentration camps, was transformed into a sterile, modern cartoon about overprotective parents literally learning to let their chicks leave the family nest.
Still from the animated film “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”
A Welcome Return
This detour into the history of Aardman’s recent projects is not without purpose – just imagine the anxiety with which fans awaited the return of “Wallace & Gromit.” After all, this is one of the most decorated animated series in history – with three Academy Awards to its name! Not to mention the cultural significance of the characters, who not only popularized the image of cozy provincial Britain but also transformed the country’s image abroad. This giant of world cinema could have easily turned into another unremarkable piece of content for Netflix. Even on paper, “Vengeance Most Fowl” didn’t inspire confidence and didn’t differ from previous Aardman sequels: instead of a new plot, a safe return of a 30-year-old villain, and one of the main themes chosen was the ubiquitous and topical artificial intelligence. Thankfully, the worst fears were not confirmed: the new installment – while not outstanding – is a worthy continuation of the great series.
Still from the animated film “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”
Perhaps the main drawback of the film, especially when viewed in the context of completing a marathon of the entire franchise, is the noticeably reduced density of visual gags, jokes, Wallace’s bizarre inventions, and, unfortunately, an increased number of lines – arguments, monologues, and not always appropriate blockbuster one-liners. Aardman’s hallmark has always been that the studio took the mantra “show, don’t tell” to an absurd level and elevated it to an absolute: half-hour shorts fired off references and parodies of classics like a machine gun, poked fun at great writers (Dogstoyevsky!), amazed with new pointless Wallace machines, and masterful visual jokes. The saturation of events is understandable and explainable: each frame is a titanic manual labor, so the creators simply could not waste time. Even the first feature film (“The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”) showed that maintaining the same rich density for 80 minutes is impossible. “Vengeance Most Fowl,” however, more often than usual, gives the audience time to exhale and even yawn. This has never happened in the franchise before.
Still from the animated film “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”
A Heartwarming Message
Of course, “Vengeance Most Fowl” is full of great scenes and funny jokes: take, for example, another canine-literary gag (Virginia Woof), a dozen parodies (from “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Shawshank Redemption” to “James Bond” and “Aliens”), and a large-scale chase in the finale – not without a city canal, aqueduct, and… vintage boots. If there’s one thing Aardman always goes all out on, it’s on-screen chases, displaying boundless imagination. However, what makes the new installment truly special is the plot, or rather, the tone and intonation of the creators. The studio, which spends weeks toiling over plasticine figures for a few seconds of screen time, has every reason to mercilessly criticize artificial intelligence and the lifeless generations of neural networks that have flooded the Internet. And yet, Aardman did something different.
Instead of old-man grumbling, there’s a simple but effective allegory with Gromit’s cozy garden, which the garden gnome turns into a lifeless place with a set of geometrically precisely trimmed plants and neatly laid paths. Instead of a didactic ending about the danger of a rebellious AI, there’s a hint of peaceful coexistence and a touching realization that no machine can replace the connection between loved ones. The ungrateful and often unappreciative Wallace strokes Gromit for the first time – before that, the hapless inventor and sluggard used a machine. This ode to human connection may seem like too simple of a happy ending, but the important message is amplified a hundredfold because the creators convey it with imperfect characters on whom fingerprints are literally visible.