Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

After enduring his master Wallace's Rube Goldberg-esque morning ritual, Gromit finds peace and tranquility in gardening. As Wallace introduces his latest invention, Gromit thinks Norbot, the intelligent gnome who "helps him," should do so. "Nice and tidy!" exclaims the Norbot, transforming Gromit's flowers and vegetables into a green, three-dimensional nightmare. You can watch this movie on Flixtor to.

But things get worse when Norbot and the entire army of evil intelligent gnomes turn out to be controlled by their nemesis, who is imprisoned in the local zoo in Wallace and Gromit: The Most Foul Revenge.

Aardman director Nick Park has devised a story that not only features the most popular duo from the first short film, but also their nemesis, the greatest movie villain of all time, Feathers McGraw, this time in a full-length adventure. There, Gromit saves the day again. But while it's always fun to spend time with Wallace and Gromit, Aardman's stories can get repetitive. Feathers is pursuing the same loot that originally got her imprisoned, but it turns out it was hidden on West Wallaby Street all along, and in a climax reminiscent of the train scene in The Wrong Pants, she is unable to catch up. The evil army has been around since Curse of the Giant Rabbit and is repeated in the sequel, Chicken Run. Also back is PC Mackintosh from Were-Rabbit, who is now a Wallace-esque Chief Inspector with his own Gromit in PC Mukherjee.

The fun here is in the little details, like Wallace's TV reporter named Onya Doorstop, who names his new business "Norm Improvement and Feathers" and sabotages the inventor and his dog with a cheese knife. Not only does the Nobot trample Gromit's garden, he defeats Gromit's love of knitting by spitting out a complete one-piece knit suit with Wallace's shirt, tie, vest and trousers patterned on it. It's fun to watch McGraw sweat in stop-motion as he tries to outwit a sleeping guard or master a complex organ like in "The Phantom of the Opera". And then there's the swipe of the razor, the "close shave" indeed. Wallace has always underestimated Gromit, but it really hurts to hear him report the robbery and add, "Even my dog's gone," as if Gromit were a minor detail.

Displaying exceptional skill in the extremely time-consuming art of stop-motion animation, directors Merlin Crossingham and Nick Park saved money by replacing much of the original clay with silicone, without losing the handmade feel. One of Park's most notable talents is his ability to give characters such as the mouthless dog an expressive look with moving eyebrows, or to endow the cone-shaped penguin with black spots for eyes with evil intent. He also has a flair for visual gags, such as when Feathers removes a brick to climb over a wall, warning the public to beware of such crimes on the other side.

Gromit worries that Wallace (Ben Whitehead) is spending too much time on his inventions. This concern is magnified in his latest film, where a robot gardener is supposed to do all the work, but evil forces secretly take control of the robot, leading to a sinister ending in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Like everyone who knows them, I've been a fan of Wallace and Gromit since Outdoors (1989) and have loved them ever since. This leads me to a criticism of Aardman's latest film (and its predecessor, Much Ado About Nothing (2005)). W&G works best as short films, not feature-length films.

Don't misinterpret this criticism. The dynamic duo and their funny antics are fun to watch in short or long form, but the shorter version works better and is more cost effective. Still, anything Wallace & Gromit does has to be fun, and Vengeance Most Fowl is fun.

Co-directors Merlin Crossingham and Nick Park (creators of "W&G") combine two stories into one. Gromit worries about humans becoming too dependent on technology for household chores. Wallace then introduces his most ambitious project to date, Norbot (Reece Shearsmith), a working garden gnome tasked with keeping everything "tidy" and in order.

"The Other Story" sees the return of one of the greatest villains of all time, Feathers McGraw. If you remember 1993's The Wrong Pants, the little penguin and the mastermind pulled off a major heist with Wallace and his inventions. Now Feathers is back and using his criminal mind to hack and take over the gnomes. Useful mechanical garden ornaments become evil mechanisms, especially when an army of botgnomes is created for very evil purposes.

I'm not sure what audience the filmmakers are trying to appeal to outside of the dedicated fanbase that includes me. Younger kids might find Feathers' evil plot too scary, but older animation fans will enjoy it. "Vengeance Most Fowl" feels more nostalgic than fresh and new, but that's not a bad thing.