Review: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

For those of you who've never seen any of the Wallace & Gromit shorts, let me begin by saying that you've really missed out. If you haven't seen The Wrong Trousers or A Close Shave, go out right now and find the newly released DVD, which includes these and several more. For Oscar nominated (and two-time Oscar winner) creator/co-director Nick Park, this marks his first foray into feature film directing, and what a debut it is. (And as of the writing of this review, it's number one at the box office.)

To get the unfamiliar acquainted, Wallace (the human) is a British inventor who loves the simple things in life, especially cheese. Gromit (his dog) never speaks a word - You expect dogs to talk? Tisk, tisk. You've been watching too many Disney cartoons - but is clearly the more intelligent of the two. That's basically all you need to know. Now, on to the movie.

The Curse of the Were-Rabbit picks up with Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) and Gromit having their own pest control agency, Anti-Pesto. Their town is overrun by rabbits, and this is a major concern for the townsfolk since they are only days away from the annual gigantic vegetable festival. So Wallace and Gromit are called out to deal with the critters. On one of these outings, Wallace meets Lady Tottington (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter), by whom he is immediately smitten. However, he also meets "Totty's" fiance, Victor (voiced by Ralph Fiennes), who prefers shooting the rabbits to humanely trapping them as Anti-Pesto does. Speaking of which, from all the trapping, Wallace and Gromit have cages and cages of rabbits in their home, so they decide to use one of Wallace's inventions - a kind of brainwashing machine - to make the rabbits no longer want to eat vegetables. But in doing so, they inadvertantly create a monster known as the Were-Rabbit, which they must then find a way of stopping before it devours everyone's prized gigantic veggies.

The clay-mation in this film is not of the same ilk as something like The Corpse Bride: The puppets are not as "stream-lined" or sleek; in fact, they still bear the fingerprints of their creators. But this does not detract one bit from the movie. Wallace & Gromit have always had their own style, and this film is bursting with it from the very first notes of their familiar theme music. The voice-acting is excellent, and the story, while simple, is fun to watch unfold. There are plenty of winks at other famous movies (especially old monster movies) and many Shrek-style double-entendres thrown in for "grown-ups." And, plus, much of the movie is just plain funny (unlike most of today's so-called "comedies"). I would recommend this family movie to anyone.

Grade: A