Plot Synopsis:
Wallace and his loyal dog, Gromit, set out to discover the mystery behind the garden sabotage that plagues their village and threatens the annual giant vegetable growing contest.
Official Trailer:
Full Review:
After my disappointment with Aardman’s 1997 short film Stage Fright (see review HERE), I only remembered how great the studio’s other films are. Works such as Creature Comforts and Chicken Run, without a shadow of a doubt, trump Stage Fright any day of the week. However, I think it’s fair to say that the loveable duo portrayed in this film still remain the studio’s Magnus Opus. First introduced in 1989’s A Grand Day Out, Wallace and his adorable chum Gromit have won over the hearts of the British public as well as the rest of the world with their fantastic imagination and inherent charm. So now after three super-successful 30 minute shorts (and later followed on by a fourth short), the pair star in their own feature length film!
Released in 2005, I still remember when this was first coming out. I was so excited to see this since the claymation moguls are responsible for a small part of my childhood. I used to own all the toys and re-watch the shorts over and over again, never growing tired of the zany but light-hearted humour. So to see a 90 minute W&G adventure on the big screen was like heaven on a cheese cracker. Sorry, expect several references throughout!!! So what did I think? When I was a mindless child, I adored it. As a grown up stubborn teenager who thinks his opinion on movies is more important than others which is why he writes these reviews, I still really liked it but a few minor flaws have since been uncovered.
Let’s begin! The first fantastic factor of this film is that Nick Park and Steve Box, who made all the previous W&G films, take on all creative duties for this film (i.e. directing and writing), which is excellent to see! It is very rare in the movie industry that a film adaption of content which originated on a smaller platform (in this case short films) allows the original creators of said content to tackle the adaption head on. It shows that the studio care about the source material and respect what makes it so great in the first place. And that really shows throughout with the film with none of the humour and atmosphere being diluted or compromised.
All of the comedy enlightens the heart and tickles your inner child (not in that way!!!) despite most of the jokes just being a play on words and the use of a bit of slapstick. If used in any other film, I feel as if the comedy wouldn’t work as well as it would when our amiable inventor and dog address the same humour. There’s just something about their delivery that automatically makes it funny. Merely looking at Wallace’s cheesy grin makes me laugh! Albeit, I’ll admit that Wallace and Gromit really excel in dialogue based humour as opposed to physical humour, much like the old Looney Tunes cartoons produced by Warner Brothers. Although Aardman steer towards more physical humour in this clay crusade, Curse Of The Were-Rabbit finds a wonderful balance between these two conflicting styles of comedy which is bound to please both young and old, as well as long time fans and the uninitiated.
Personally, I’m not a fan of slapstick/physical humour due to my distaste of the original Three Stooges show (GASP! Shocker, I know!). But if done right, it can definitely work wonders. Thankfully, COTWR is injected with so much creativity and ambition I just can’t help but smiling! And if think that’s the only way to describe what makes Wallace and Gromit so brilliant: creativity. Only in this ‘franchise’ will you be able to get away with a giant killer rabbit that steals vegetables from a terrified neighbourhood! And when I say the film is ambitious, I mean that some set pieces are so out of this world it’s truly absurd (in a good way). I’m also referring to the film’s underlying messages about animal cruelty and… yes that’s right, eating your vegetables. But hey, the film has silly message for the kiddies to save you from addressing it yourself as well as a general message which everyone can learn from!
I could just rave about this dynamic duo all day if I could, but unfortunately there are a few flaws that need to be discussed. Just like Stage Fright, the film suffers from a weak villain in the form of the Victor played by Ralph Fiennes (Schindler’s List, The English Patient). He doesn’t have a lot of motivation other than being blinded by jealousy, which I feel is a bit of a cop out since just naturally being an arse doesn’t justify some of this guy’s decisions! I also feel that the film is slightly bloated. By that, I mean the way the film is paced just makes the entire movie feel ironically like a really long short. Maybe that’s because the runtime flew by me so fast, but at the end I kinda felt as empty as Wallace is when there’s no cheese in the fridge.
But at the end of the day, Curse Of The Were-Rabbit manages to do a lot more things perfectly than it does not-so-perfectly. It delights my inner fanboy, inner child, and my overall movie-loving self. If you want to watch an animated film that doesn’t make you want to squelch your eyes and ears into guacamole (cough, Frozen, cough), then this is a high-spirited, lively animation that doesn’t fail to disappoint.
Fergie’s Final Fifteen:
Charming, incredibly witty, and absurdly enjoyable. A much needed breath of fresh air. CHEEEEESE GROMIT!!!!
FERGIE FILMS 