Vengeance Most Fowl Review: Wallace & Gromit return to take on the machines

It seems like poetry that as the film industry seems to be at a tipping point for AI becoming the go-to for studios as a way to cut costs without dialing back output, that a hand-animated, stop-motion film about the dangers of over-reliance on tech should be one of the best releases from Netflix in recent months.

Yes, for those that grew up watching the excellent claymation shorts of Wallace and Gromit, creator Nick Park has brought back the cheese-obsessed inventor, and his do-it-all dog Gromit in a new feature film, Vengeance Most Fowl, a sequel to their wildly successful and Oscar-winning animated short, The Wrong Trousers.

And much like that short, Vengeance is another vibrant, funny, spirited film that can be enjoyed by all ages.

Vengeance Most Fowl finds Wallace and Gromit living their peaceful lives after having foiled the plot of jewel thief mastermind, Feathers McGraw, a penguin masquerading as a chicken.

Now, surrounded by Wallace’s many inventions, it’s becoming clear to Gromit that perhaps Wallace is beginning to depend too much on these machines, using them for nearly any and all tasks from getting dressed in the morning, making a morning cup of tea, and even patting Gromit on the head.

These concerns are eventually confirmed when Wallace creates the robot garden gnome Norbot to take over Gromit’s tasks in the garden. And while Norbot’s work is certainly efficient and precise, it simultaneously robs Gromit of the joy of that gardening work.

All of this is silly, sure, but it mirrors the real world and how so many of us are looking for optimization and time saving “hacks” that we eventually optimize ourselves out of the things that might make us happy. Perhaps its no coincidence that as our world gets more and more advanced and our lives become more and more digitized and streamlined that “unhappiness” seems to also be trending in the same direction.

Overcome by the entrepreneural spirit, Wallace realizes the limitless potential profit of an army of Norbots designed with the purpose of carrying out home and garden work for the town. After setting up shop for his new business, thing start to go awry once McGraw formulates a perfect escape plan from prison, finding a way to create new Norbots infected with a virus to carry out his master plan of revenge and finally making off with his diamond. 

As is always the case with Wallace and Gromit, the film is not just fun and entertaining for kids, but just as much so for adults. What’s unique about these films is how the comedy tends to reach adults not by being crass or filthy in a way that goes over kids heads, but by finding ways to speak to the grind of responsibility inherent to adulthood.

Here, as in Wallace & Gromit films of the past, Wallace provides the slapstick humor while Gromit provides the quiet stoicism of “I’m getting too old for this sh–” over and over again.

Unsurprisingly, the stop-motion claymation of Vengeance is delightful. The craft on display is immaculate and it really does have a certain quality to it — that hand-made quality that even CGI animation can’t quite seem to capture. Much like Gromit’s approach to the garden, here at Aardman, it’s the labor of love that provides the most satisfying results.

And Aardman puts that labor to the test. As the film goes on, the gnomes become more and more numerous and the action starts to heat up, that done-by-hand craftsmanship really shows its qualities. But it’s not just the claymation that is jaw-dropping, but Nick Park’s direction of the film’s action sequences.

If there is one thing that we learned from this film’s predecessor, The Wrong Trousers, it is that Nick Park has a keen eye for action and he utilizes motion and direction to full effect in that film’s incredible toy train chase sequence and he brings all of those same skills here in the film’s final big chase, this time on boats. The sequence is breathtaking with all of the kinds of action beats that you would expect out of a film like Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (a film that feels like a close cousin to Vengeance Most Fowl at times).

In the end, Vengeance Most Fowl is a movie about keeping a safe distance between utilizing tech and AI and allowing our world to be completely dominated by it — to our detriment. Yet at the same time it’s the kind of movie that you can easily gather the kids around and enjoy with the whole family. Mom and Dad won’t be begging for it to end while the kids laugh and enjoy themselves.

RATING: A-