It has been nearly 20 years since the last full length Wallace and Gromit feature film – The Curse of the Were-Rabbit –came out in 2005 under the Blair government. Now in a world totally changed, we have a new adventure for the lads from 62 West Wallaby Street in Wigan – this time battling AI controlled gnomes on a sinister mission.
For those who don’t know and should, Wallace is a hapless inventor who is better with Rube Goldberg machines for making his breakfast than he is with life. His inventions are always somewhere between entirely brilliant and utterly useless, and his house is probably a death trap for the uninitiated. His faithful dog Gromit is there to pick up the pieces, often thanklessly working behind the scenes to fix problems.
Back in 1993, our intrepid duo crossed swords with Feathers McGraw, a seemingly innocent penguin who hides a heart filled with evil intent – primarily to steal jewels and diamonds. We had hoped to see the last of him, but in Vengeance Most Fowl, the notorious McGraw is back, and he plans revenge on our heroes.
Aardman animations, a British institution that have made stop motion animations for decades, are subtle masters at gentle lampoons of life and politics in ways that probably go unnoticed by the average Daily Mail reader. Vengeance Most Fowl takes (soft) digs at the dangers of AI, modern policing and tabloid media sensationalism.
When Wallace announces his latest invention – an AI powered robot gnome called Norbot – you know it is going to be a disaster. He unleashes Norbot first of all on Gromit’s carefully tended to garden, full of myriad colourful flora. Norbot is instructed to tidy up and goes to work destroying everything beautiful to turn the hedges and trees into set, structured shapes. The garden is rendered dull and monotonous, but clean. Much like an AI rendering of a garden.
Gromit’s unhappiness at the destruction of aesthetic beauty is clear, but it means he is alert to the dangers when the nefarious McGraw sets his plan into motion, to reprogramme the Norbots for an audacious plan.
In responses to a crime wave, the police are mostly bumbling, blaming Wallace because they make biased assumptions about his guilt. Chief Inspector Albert Mackintosh, who was a Police Constable in Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and clearly promoted above his level of competence, is ambivalent about evidence or due process, preferring easy arrests and early retirement (“I don’t care what it takes! Get this man locked up behind bars where he belongs!”). The press jump on the bandwagon, one report (voiced by Philomena Cunk) labelling Wallace an “evil inventor” live on TV.
Whilst it is light and fun viewing, embedding our heroes from Wigan in the battle against overbearing cops and an unethical media desperate for sensationalism was a clever dig at some of the most powerful institutions in British society.
May the adventures of the dynamic inventor Wallace and his long suffering but brilliant sidekick Gromit continue. Not another two decades between movies, please!