SYNOPSIS

The cheese-loving Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his ever faithful dog Gromit -- the much-loved duo from Aardman’s Oscar-winning clay-animated “Wallace & Gromit” shorts -- star in an all new comedy adventure, marking their first full-length feature film.

As the annual Giant Vegetable Competition approaches, it’s “veggie-mania” in Wallace & Gromit’s neighbourhood. The two enterprising chums have been cashing in with their pest-control outfit, “Anti-Pesto,” which humanely dispatches the rabbits that try to invade the town’s sacred gardens.

Suddenly, a huge, mysterious, veg-ravaging beast begins terrorizing the neighbourhood, attacking the town’s prized plots at night and destroying everything in its path. Desperate to protect the competition, its hostess, Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter), commissions Anti-Pesto to catch the creature and save the day. Lying in wait, however, is Lady Tottington’s snobby suitor, Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes), who’d rather shoot the beast and secure the position of local hero -- not to mention Lady Tottington’s hand in marriage. With the fate of the competition in the balance, Lady Tottington is eventually forced to allow Victor to hunt down the vegetable-chomping marauder. Little does she know that Victor’s real intent could have dire consequences for her ... and our two heroes.

Nick Park (“Chicken Run”), the original creator of Wallace & Gromit, and Steve Box are directing “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” from a screenplay by Steve Box & Nick Park and Bob Baker and Mark Burton. Peter Sallis, who has voiced the role of Wallace in all of the shorts, reprises his role in the feature film. Two-time Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes (“The English Patient,” “Schindler’s List”) and Academy Award nominee Helena Bonham Carter (“The Wings of the Dove”) are the voices of Victor and Lady Tottington, respectively.

Review by
KEN PRIEBE

Tonight my wife Jay & I just got back from seeing the new ‘Wallace & Gromit’ film, and as I sit here typing, a big part of me feels like hopping back in the car and rushing back to watch it again. I was reminded why I love movies in the first place, and also why I love stop-motion animation. I think anyone who loves movies would feel the same way after seeing this one.

For one thing, it’s made for people who love movies, particularly those partial to monster movies and classic sci-fi/horror films. There are homages to Metropolis, King Kong, The Wolfman, American Werewolf in London, the Hammer horror genre, Beauty & the Beast, and touches of Rube Goldberg, Chaplin, and a unique brand of British humor that is purely Aardman, made famous by the genius of Wallace & Gromit’s creator Nick Park himself. The familiar elements are all there: the elderly fire-and-brimstone vicar, the forbidden romance, the villainous ‘Gaston’-type, carrying the damsel to the rooftop, the rooftop chase and the death/resurrection ending. It was all stuff we’ve seen before, but we were glad to see it. There was nothing forced or fake about it…it was pure cinema.

Animation is the purest cinema you can get, because animated characters are essentially symbolic. Jim Henson said this about his Muppet characters, who are close cousins to the frame-by-frame variety: “A puppet is a symbol of whatever you’re trying to portray, therefore an evil character can be truly evil; it can be evil incarnate. You’re not dealing with an ‘actor’ who you are ‘imagining’ in that role, so there’s a kind of purity to it.” The irony is that through these symbolic characters, who are about 18 inches high and made of clay, we see true reflections of ourselves.

The reflective theme in this film that resonated with me was in the townspeople and how protective they are of their prize vegetables. Their whole way of life is driven by the annual vegetable contest and their desire to win the top prize. Their obsession is such that they go to extreme measures to keep their vegetables safe, using fancy alarm systems and ridiculous technological gadgets to watch over them. Not even the vicar is immune to it. We all have ‘things’ in our lives like this…we store them under lock & key to keep them safe from any harm or interference, whether it be jewelry, cars, money, etc. We sometimes protect our material possessions and idolize them to the point where they are as precious to us as our own children. This is brilliantly parodied in the film, where vegetables are literally treated as such: the old woman running away with hers in a baby carriage, and Gromit lovingly caressing his prize watermelon. (I confess I’ve done this with my DVD & record collection.)

On a deeper level, we have more abstract things in our lives that we protect from being tampered with by the outside world. We are not only protective of our toys, but things like pride, addiction, jealousy, lust….our deepest secrets and nasty habits we just can’t seem to let go of….our “precious”…..our “ring” that we lovingly caress….our sin. The more we cling to it, the more it will consume us, as it does Gollum or Frodo. Indeed, we must kill this part of ourselves (as the animated vicar says, ‘the beast within!’) in order to overcome it. Only through a sacrifice can this part of ourselves be killed.

When Gromit sees that Wallace’s life is in danger, he cuts the ‘umbilical cord’ of his treasured watermelon and takes the risk of taking it out of its ‘womb’ into the dangerous world beyond. Through the climactic chase and daring rescue mission, the watermelon is sacrificed. Gromit has a brief moment of mourning for his prize, but moves on to save Wallace and doesn’t look back. Ultimately, the two friends end up saving each other and risking their lives in order to be reunited again. Our possessions are valuable and can bring us much comfort and joy in this life, but are nothing compared to the comfort and joy of relationships that are intended to last in this lifetime and the next.