Stop-Motion-Ani-May-Tion!: Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Dir. Nick Park & Merlin Crossingham, 1h19m, 2024)

There is no duo in stop-motion, and perhaps in animation in general, to rival Wallace and Gromit; not only are they the medium's icons, they're almost perhaps its most successful franchise, launching animator Nick Park into animation's greatest directors, making Aardman, their home for over thirty-five years tremendously successful, and turning the adventures of one Northern inventor and his intelligent, if long-suffering dog into the must-watch viewing of British Christmases with each new instalment. Wallace and Gromit has become a quintessential British cinematic export, a charming slice of British eccentricity and canine pluck, not to mention Shaun the Sheep's wordless success with fans as far apart as Japan and Sweden.

Yet, it has been a while since Wallace and Gromit graced our screens (2008's A Matter of Loaf and Death), and longer still since their single feature film instalment, 2005's Curse of the Wererabbit, with which this shares returning characters, and marks only the duo's second full-length adventure. Would the energy of the rest of the franchise still be there, some sixteen years after the duo's last outing? Would Aardman even be able to complete the film, with the maker of their plasticine, the building blocks of all their most iconic characters, going out of business?

We needn't have worried; like a well-loved pair of slippers, the film slips into the franchise like it's been there all along. Picking up some years after the capture of dastardly penguin jewel thief, Feathers McGraw-and making you wonder exactly how the Wallace and Gromit timeline works for a moment-Wallace (now voiced by Ben Whitehead after the passing of Peter Sallis in 2017) is once again concerned about the mounting bills and hatches a new invention to make ends meet, and Gromit is once again concerned about his master's plans. It's like we never left. Wallace's plan this time is Norbot (voiced by Reese Sheersmith in full enthusiastic-and slightly eerie- AI tones), a garden(gnome)ing robot that promises to tidy and, er, garden, gardens. Much to Gromit's horror, the diminutive AI bot is put to work on his beloved garden, the locals are thrilled, and Wallace scents another business opportunity.

Intially, all seems well. However, in the local zoo, McGraw, copping a fair number of the deranged revenge seeing sociopath tips off Bobby De Niro in Cape Fear (1991), prison pull-ups et al, seeks revenge on the duo, soon hatching a plan from his prison-cell to take over Norbot. There's something rather salient, in amongst the jokes of Wallace and Gromit entering the internet era-Wallace's lax security, chiptune theme tune, and the peppering of sight gags, the best of which has to be Norbot's list of settings ranging from "good" to "unassuming" to "bit selfish" to "EVIL", about the reliance on AI, at a point where animation, among all industries, is threatened by it. From here, Feathers' plan becomes even more diabolical, his sinister plots kept close to his chest involving an army of Norbots, and the very diamond that our duo stopped him from stealing in The Wrong Trousers (1993).

As Wallace falls under police suspicion (Peter Kay's bumbling police officer, Mackintosh and eager recruit, PC Mukherjee, voiced by Lauren Patel), so Gromit races to clear his master's name and fowl, sorry, foil the penguin's plot. They may be too late, for Feathers McGraw completely steals every scene he's in. Undeniably one of the greatest villains of Western animation from his appearances in The Wrong Trousers alone, where several inches of plasticine, metal and resin seem to be channelling the spirit of Alec Guinness as The Ladykillers' Professor Marcus, the penguin a silent, and unnerving character who exudes cinematic menace.

Here, things become super-villainous and the penguin rises to the occasion, now actively (if still silently) adversarial, full of heelish, and entirely mimed, sensibilities that range from punching one of his honour guard for playing the bagpipes to some genuinely hilarious little moments of character, waving his adversaries off, blasting Matt Monro and Bach at various moments, and animated with ominous gusto all the way to the film's finale. Not that McGraw was ever in danger of not being a major part of a film in which he plans and enacts revenge on our duo, but he threatens to steal the entire movie away from our heroes, and cements his place as one of this medium's greatest characters.

Against him, Wallace and Gromit once more form a superb team, Gromit once again uncovering the plot, and tracking down the avian villain, whilst Wallace's inventions, madcap though they might b cause Wallace to experience a moment of self-doubt when the co-opting of his inventions in Feathers' plot is revealed-come good in the end. Whilst on a smaller scale than Curse of the Wererabbit's cast, there's also more of a world for our heroes to react to, from amusingly named newsreaders-perhaps the single best gag of the film-to police investigating the case, all of which adds a more lived-in quality than the older short films.

Beyond all this, of course, remains that quintessential quality that makes Wallace and Gromit what they ares; not just the myriad sightgags, the homages and references, but every element, from voicework and Lorne Balfe's suspenseful score, down to tiny little moments of animation. In an age where animation is under threat, these tactile worlds, these tiny realms that exist before the camera, populated by characters sculpted and animated by human hands, feel more important than ever. More than this, Vengeance Most Fowl might just be the best outing for the duo since the 1990s, and with the inclusion of perhaps their most infamous foe, it's as familiar as it is action packed, the return of stop motion's icons, just when they were most needed.

Rating: Must See (Personal Recommendation)

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is available for streaming via Netflix worldwide, and on iPlayer in the UK.

Next week, and indeed next month, to The Epic, as we consider cinema at its grandest and most sweeping, beginning with David Lean's anti-war epic, The Bridge on the River Kwai