Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is rib-tickling proof that newer isn’t always better
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All hail the return of Feathers McGraw, a villain of silent malevolence equal to Hannibal Lecter. It feels a little silly expounding on a metaphor when we’re talking about a 79-minute Wallace & Gromit feature, but Vengeance Most Fowl has laid one out like cheese in a mousetrap. The triumphant return of two Northern icons – the cheddar-fixated, genius inventor Wallace (Ben Whitehead, who took over from Peter Sallis after his death in 2017) and his mute, downtrodden canine companion Gromit – sees the pair face the most topical of foes: an AI gnome, or Norbot (voiced by Reece Shearsmith), invented by Wallace as a way to further automate his life.
The lesson here is that while technology has its place and its advantages, “there are some things a machine just can’t do”. That may as well be the motto of Aardman Animations, the makers of Wallace and Gromit, who have stuck by stop-motion in an industry obsessed with the latest gadgets and gizmos.
Of course, Wallace should already know how easily machines can turn against him – this is, after all, a direct sequel to the 1993 short The Wrong Trousers, which involved a rogue pair of steampunk pantaloons (it is, however, the second feature film for the pair following 2005’s The Curse of the Were-Rabbit). Yet, he’s so hopelessly addicted to finding shortcuts for life’s basic tasks that he’s invented the “Pat-o-matic” to save him the hassle of petting his own dog. That lethal determination to take every possible shortcut unfortunately makes Wallace a prime target for AI.
