 Director: Nick Park, Merlin Crossingham Studio: Aardman Animation Genre(s): Comedy Rated: PG (For some action and rude humor) |
Wallace & Gromit are one of cinema's most likable duos. Aside from going on zany adventures that are colorful and fun, Gromit is the kind of dog we would all like to have; one that sticks by their owner's side even when said owner is aloof and obtuse to how one-sided the relationship can be sometimes. Though mostly providing entertainment in a series of short films (most of which have won Academy Awards), they did at least star in one movie that showed that the pair were genuine movie stars in their own right. Now (courtesy of Netflix) the duo are starring in their second movie, "Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl." Aside from being a highly anticipated follow-up to their previous film, it also acts as a sequel to one of their best shorts.
The short in question was "The Wrong Trousers," and it featured their most dangerous foe in all their adventures: a penguin with a chicken complex named Feathers McGraw. McGraw wanted to steal a rare blue diamond, but the two foiled his plans and sent him to the zoo. Now, years later, McGraw is planning to steal the diamond again. This time he also wants revenge on the two who sent him to the zoo and plans to frame them by hacking into Wallace's new invention: a gnome that was designed to help Gromit take care of the garden. Turns out the robot can do quite a bit of things, and Wallace may finally be able to make money by renting his invention out.
However, for reasons that I can only explain away as a 'Wallace moment,' Wallace programmed the robot so that there is an "evil" setting in the gnome, and it is this programming oversight that Feathers McGraw exploits (and tech companies wonder why people are concerned about the invention of AI). All of this is what you would typically expect from a Wallace & Gromit storyline. The issue (at least as far as I see it) is that this isn't just another special: it is a movie that requires double the viewer's time. For something that is being billed as "a movie," the story seems too thin to warrant the time viewers have to give to it. You know a movie is in trouble when the script needs to throw in the career ambitions of a policewoman who has no connection to the main characters for most of the film to stretch out the screenplay.
If this had been an hour-long TV special with roughly 20% of the fat trimmed, it likely would have been more entertaining. Instead, it felt like my time wasn't being respected very much. To be fair, I saw "Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl" in a movie theater, a place where many of you likely won't. In England, the movie premiered on the BBC television network and Netflix is doing the most basic of theatrical releases for Oscar consideration in the states. Still, the fact that the project feels so small compared to many of their other adventures while being more than double in length seems to be counterintuitive. When the adventure was done it felt like very little had been accomplished, and the fact that it even leaves itself open for potential sequels was more frustrating than anything. Crikies Gromit, this was disappointing.
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