Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: Movie Review

Cast: Ben Whitehead, Reece Shearsmith, Peter Kay, Diane Morgan
Director: Merlin Crossingham, Nick Park

Wallace and Gromit, the beloved icons of claymation, are back in a spiritual sequel to the award-winning The Wrong Trousers, from which their devious nemesis Feathers McGraw was spawned.

In this latest, Wallace has invented a new smart gnome called Norbot (voiced by Inside No9's Reece Shearsmith) and it seems poised to take over the town thanks to its offer of easy work and relief from boring jobs.

But long-suffering sidekick Gromit's not convinced by the interloper and when Feathers McGraw hacks the machine from his prison zoo cell, it's soon a battle of wits as Wallace is framed...

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl offers the most simple of animated pleasures (a marvel when you consider the stop-motion film is about the nefarious perils of AI) - but more than that, it continues Park's somewhat silly anarchic streak and Aardman Animation's desire for continual corny jokes and sophisticated throwaway sight gags.

It's true to say that Vengeance Most Fowl doesn't meet the heights of The Wrong Trousers. And there's a feeling that some sequences seem like nods to the first (the canal boat chase of the latest being a successor to the stunningly brilliant train race between Feathers and Gromit), but that's to deny the sheer pleasure that's on offer here from a film that is simply about providing joy.

Whitehead sounds like the much loved and departed Peter Sallis - but as ever it's the wearied expressions and simple gestures of Gromit's frustration at the idiocy of his owner that make this film so enjoyable.

There's a silly streak that's hard to deny throughout, and while it can't reach the heights of the earlier adventures, there's just something deeply pleasurable about returning to Wallace and Gromit's world.