After 16 long years, claymation studio Aardman Animations released another Wallace & Gromit feature film, their second ever. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Foul, released in the U.S. on December 18, 2024, features the titular Yorkshire-British inventor and his sassy, no-nonsense pooch in another invention-based exploit. Once again, Wallace’s inventions go too far, and Gromit must be there to put things right before things get worse. As of Jan. 15, the movie has a rating of 7.7/10 from over 20,000 reviews on IMDb and a whopping 100% and 93% on the Tomatometer and Popcorn meter to match.
This polished production directly follows the events of The Wrong Trousers (1993), where said film’s main villain, the ominous penguin Feathers McGraw, attempted to steal the “blue diamond”; the movie opens with Wallace on the phone with the police. Now calmed by McGraw’s incarceration, Wallace invents Norbot, a voice-activated gnome robot to help with Gromit’s gardening (made ironic as Gromit can not speak). However, things go south when McGraw learns about Norbot from his cell. Seeking an opportunity to ruin Wallace and Gromit’s reputations, he hacks into Norbot from a nearby computer, reprogramming it into becoming evil, and instructing it to build an army of evil Norbots that will help McGraw to escape. Now with a serious threat to the returned status quo, Wallace must come to his senses and learn that inventions don’t solve every problem—they can go too far—while the duo do their best to foil the penguin’s plans.
This film, while made for a child audience, can be entertaining for adults, not just Brits or longtime fans of the Wallace & Gromit series. Aside from your general clever puns and humor, the film’s visuals are very clean and a pleasure to watch. The stop-motion production looks very smooth and detailed, more-so than previous productions. While this can mainly be attributed to the film’s uniquely large use of CGI, it doesn’t ruin the cleanliness of the film’s visuals, albeit sacrificing a kind of “authenticity” to traditional, older claymation animation. The film even provides a contemporary, adult message about the dangers of expansive smart technology, using Norbot to represent the risks behind using AI technology, especially when left unprotected.
As for Britons, the film is quintessentially British, providing many puns and references to British contemporary culture. For example, one news reporter in the movie is named Anton Deck (Muzz Khan), being a reference to the British television duo Ant & Dec, most famous (arguably) for their work on Britain’s Got Talent. Yet another cleverly named news reporter, Onya Doorstep, is even voiced by Diane Morgan, the actor behind the comedic British mockumentary character Philomena Cunk. The diehard fans of Wallace & Gromit may also notice small details in the film that call to previous Wallace & Gromit productions. For example, the motorbike and sidecar that Gromit drives in the movie first appeared in A Close Shave (1995). There is even a reference to the first ever Wallace & Gromit production, A Grand Day Out (1989), with an implication that the moon is made of cheese, moon cheese being something Wallace eats in the debut project. Even the farmer from Shaun the Sheep, another one of Aardman’s most famous series, makes a clear cameo. The film is full of even more, even smaller visual nods to both British life and other productions by Aardman, all clever and hard to see.
Another large Wallace & Gromit production has been a long time coming, and Vengeance Most Fowl is an incredible break in the series’ long hiatus. With humor for all ages and pleasing visuals, with a runtime shorter than 80 minutes, it seems to be the perfect, kid-friendly watch for anyone and everyone. Given the film’s success, promise shows for even greater, possibly more frequent Wallace & Gromit productions as time goes on.
