WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MUST FLOW. The Praise of Human and Dog Friendship

Wallace & Gromit are not just a British export – they are a true national treasure, like David Bowie, the Monty Python troupe, Ricky Gervais, post-punk music, Hammer horror films, Trainspotting, Lindsay Anderson’s films, the BBC, social cinema, snooker, the Jack Russell terrier, Savile Row suits, penicillin, and cheddar cheese.

In the distant mid-90s, the undersigned accidentally stumbled across Nick Park’s short films A Grand Day Out (1989) and The Wrong Trousers (1993) on television, in which a clumsy inventor and an exceptionally intelligent dog embarked on zany adventures. The impact was stunning: these films turned out to be not only masterpieces of stop-motion animation but also hilarious comedies imbued with British humor – sharp, ironic, and delivered with a deadpan (or perhaps plasticine?) expression. Each subsequent installment of Wallace and Gromit’s adventures, endorsed by Park and his Aardman Animations company (A Close Shave [1995], The Curse of the Were-Rabbit [2005], and A Matter of Loaf and Death [2008], as well as the mini-series Cracking Contraptions [2002] and Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention [2010]), confirmed the series’ quality and uniqueness. At the same time, it served as a magnificent antidote to the dreadful, indigestible pseudo-film products of Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks.

With the latter company, Aardman even engaged in a brief collaboration, resulting in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Chicken Run (2000) by Park and Peter Lord, and Flushed Away (2006) by David Bowers and Sam Fell. However, Park ended his cooperation with DreamWorks as the studio executives constantly tried to force compromises and take creative control over his films to make them more accessible to American audiences (according to Park, this involved not just humor but also Wallace’s northern English accent!). The dealings with DreamWorks discouraged Park so much from full-length productions that his next feature film, Early Man, wasn’t released until 2018. Around the same time, work began on a new Wallace and Gromit adventure, which lasted nearly six years (with eighteen months dedicated to the shoot alone). But the wait was worth it.

Unlike the disappointing sequel Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023) by Sam Fell, Vengeance Most Fowl marks a triumphant return – not only for Park, Wallace, and Gromit but also for Feathers McGraw, the ingenious criminal penguin known from The Wrong Trousers. The cunning flightless bird seeks revenge on Wallace and Gromit for thwarting his attempt to steal a valuable jewel and helping to imprison him (or rather, put him in a zoo – after all, he’s a bird!). Once again, as in The Wrong Trousers, Feathers intends to use one of Wallace’s inventions for his schemes. This time, it’s the Gnomebot – a modern garden gnome, or rather a multifunctional AI-powered gardening robot (another nod to the “Britishness” of the series, as gardening is a cherished pastime of older Britons). Things take a turn when Feathers McGraw hacks into Wallace’s computer, takes control of Gnomebot, and creates its duplicates.

This storyline is well-trodden: Wallace builds a new invention and activates it, often despite Gromit’s doubts, and when the device (mechanical trousers, a sheep-shearing machine, an automated bakery, etc.) falls into the wrong hands, a series of comic events, intrigues, and chases ensue. But Vengeance Most Fowl introduces some novelties, particularly in addressing the dangers of uncontrolled technological advancements like AI. This commentary has a deeper layer, as Park and Crossingham’s film defies contemporary animation trends by employing the labor- and time-intensive stop-motion technique (though there is one CGI-enhanced scene). “At the peak [of production], we had about thirty-five animators working daily on various sets, producing one to five seconds of animation per day. (…) In a good week, we make one minute of the film,” Park said.

The results of this painstaking work are dazzling: the animation is flawlessly smooth, the plasticine figures seem alive, and the attention to detail – from the set design of Wallace and Gromit’s home to Gnomebot’s gardening tasks and the interior of Feathers’ submarine – is simply astounding. Moreover, Vengeance Most Fowl  boasts a brisk pace and countless references to cinematic classics; astute viewers will easily spot parodic nods to motifs from John Huston’s The African Queen (1951), Terence Young’s From Russia with Love (1963), Peter Collinson’s The Italian Job (1969), James Cameron’s Aliens (1986), Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991), Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible (1996), the Wachowskis’ The Matrix (1999), and slapstick and comedies from Ealing Studios. Park also references his legacy, hence the return of Feathers, the red motorcycle from A Close Shave, and the cheese moon from A Grand Day Out.

Setting aside the breathtaking animation, clever references, thrilling action, and contemporary themes (presented in a lighthearted and witty manner), Vengeance Most Fowl  is above all a celebration of the bond between humans and their most loyal animal companions. Anyone who has ever cared for a dog will immediately recognize their own multifaceted relationship with their pet in Wallace and Gromit’s dynamic. Despite being silent, Gromit conveys a wide range of emotions and attitudes through raised eyebrows, expressive grimaces, ear movements, and body language – just like real dogs. Wallace perfectly understands these signals, even if he sometimes ignores them, convinced that, as a human, he “knows better.” Indeed, much of the series’ humor stems from the fact that Gromit is usually the wiser of the two. Let anyone who has never encountered their dog’s puzzled gaze – as if asking, “What are you doing, human?” – cast the first stone.