Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham make a warm, funny adventure whose silent characters do the finest work. The plot is familiar and the police detours can drag, but the animation and the central friendship earn our recommendation.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is a warmly funny return, with enough care in its animation to make a familiar story worth telling again. Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham bring artificial intelligence into Wallace and Gromit’s lives without making their film feel like an illustrated warning about technology. What matters is how the technology affects their friendship. That gives the comedy something worth protecting, even when Mark Burton’s screenplay follows a predictable story.
Ben Whitehead’s Wallace is warmly played, but Gromit’s face tells us most about the state of their friendship. The animation lets us read the dog’s patience, affection and annoyance without needing those feelings explained aloud. Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham are right to keep returning to the pair: the film becomes less involving whenever the supporting business takes over. The fondness is persuasive because the animation allows for irritation, too.
Feathers McGraw makes an equally strong case for keeping quiet. His gestures and blinking eyes suggest that something unpleasant is being considered, and the tiny movements require us to pay attention. We laughed at those blinks, then felt faintly ridiculous for finding the penguin frightening. Family animation has plenty of villains who announce their intentions at volume; Feathers scarcely needs to move.
Dave Alex Riddett’s cinematography gives the stop-motion models enough presence for a slight change of expression to count. The tactile clay surfaces, including their fingerprints, help too: we remain aware that someone has touched and shaped these faces. Matt Perry’s production design gives the characters a detailed world that invites us to look beyond the immediate action. The backgrounds reward that attention, although they supply fewer laughs than the characters’ movements.
Dan Hembery’s editing is particularly good at giving a visual joke time to register before moving on. At 79 minutes, the film is brisk enough to avoid much of the padding that this kind of adventure can acquire. Julian Nott and Lorne Balfe’s music helps maintain the pace, though we came away remembering the silent performances more clearly than the score. A face or a small gesture has usually supplied all the encouragement we need to keep watching.
The weakness is Mark Burton’s plotting, which is predictable enough to take some uncertainty out of the adventure. The police strand, involving Peter Kay’s Chief Inspector Mackintosh and Lauren Patel’s P.C. Mukherjee, does not always feel necessary to the central relationship. Neither performer is the problem; the detours repeatedly ask us to leave the characters whose exchanges are doing the most interesting work. We are ready to get back to Wallace and Gromit before the film is.
The Wrong Trousers remains the sharper piece of visual comedy, and bringing back Feathers McGraw invites a comparison this film cannot quite win. Even so, the care in the animation and the warmth between the leads make this an easy recommendation. Watch it for the dog and the penguin, and allow the police their interruptions.
