Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham
Written by Mark Burton
Starring Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, Reece Shearsmith
Rated PG
Runtime: 1 hour 10 minutes
Available in the UK on December 18 and Netflix on January 3

by Tessa Swehla, Associate Editor

When one thinks of film’s truly great villains, one might think of Hannibal Lector (currently at the top of the AFI Top 100 Villains list), Norman Bates, Darth Vader, Nurse Ratched, Bruce the shark, the Joker, or even perhaps a Bond villain like Goldfinger or Blofeld. Fans of the film series Wallace and Gromit by Aardman Animations know that perhaps the scariest villain comes from what is an essentially cozy British series about a man and his dog inventing things and eating cheese. Feathers Mcgraw made his debut in the second Wallace and Gromit short The Wrong Trousers (1993). For those who haven’t seen the film, it is difficult to believe how terrifying this small, bowling pin shaped penguin could possibly be, but trust me, four-year-old Tessa was petrified by the silent menace of his beady, inscrutable eyes. The reveal that he has actually pretending to be a chicken–wearing a red rubber glove on his head to mimic a comb–using Wallace’s techno-trousers to force a sleeping Wallace (Ben Whitehead) to participate in jewel heists and various other crimes, and deftly elbowing (flippering?) his way between Wallace and Gromit in order to isolate Wallace as the perfect patsy, all while never saying a single line of dialogue, is nothing short of ruthless brilliance. It’s a truly remarkable piece of character work, bolstered by one of the greatest action sequences in stop motion animation.

So it was to great excitement when Aardman Animations announced that Feathers McGraw would be returning after a thirty year absence as the antagonist of a new Wallace and Gromit film, the first since 2008’s short A Matter of Loaf and Death and the first feature for the studio since 2005’s The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is a direct sequel to The Wrong Trousers. After years of imprisonment in the Zoo’s penguin habitat, Feathers is finally ready to wreak his revenge on the duo who foiled his dastardly plans. His opportunity arrives, as in the short, in the form of one of Wallace’s inventions, a series of smart gnomes called Norbots or “Nifty Odd-Jobbing Robots” (Reece Shearsmith). Wallace invents Norbot as a way to help Gromit out with his garden (much to Gromit’s chagrin) but quickly sees the opportunity to monetize a whole army of them to help his neighbors keep up with their landscaping. Gromit, as loyal as ever, reluctantly helps Wallace with his new business but realizes something has gone terribly wrong when the Norbots begin to act in aggressive and increasingly secretive ways.

There’s lots here that’s familiar to fans of the duo: wacky inventions, cheese, tea, Wallace getting in over his head and Gromit having to save him. Vengeance Most Fowl is much more stripped down than the delightfully campy The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The visual storytelling is as good as ever–including some excellent action sequences and puns–but the film marks a return to a smaller scale. Most of the plot takes place within Wallace and Gromit’s home or within the surrounding neighborhoods: there are no romps through the forest or goofy transformation sequences. This makes sense both from a budget perspective–The Curse of the Were-Rabbit had 30 million of DreamWorks money–but also from an artistic perspective. Park reportedly had trouble working with DreamWorks, claiming that they tried to Americanize the project, and he was happy to return to making shorts for the duo for the BBC with A Matter of Loaf and Death. Vengeance Most Fowl feels like a continuation of that simplification, a return to the ethos of the ‘90s shorts.

While earlier entries were more focused on character development and gentle ribbing of British social norms, Vengeance Most Fowl’s aim is more pointed. The surface critique is obvious—one can never know how technology will be used by other people, but Park and Crossingham also want to discuss the role of “AI” in art. Wallace has always wanted to invent ways to shortcut basic household tasks—getting up in the morning has always been an increasingly elaborate process in the WG household—but his mania for invention is out of control in this film. He’s impatient with life, looking for ways to offload any kind of labor onto technology without considering the purpose of what that labor might be. This includes giving Gromit, one of film’s goodest boys, pets, physical affection that Gromit clearly longs for from his friend, not a robot. Gromit, an established gardener, watches in horror as Norbot destroys his lovely, quaint retreat in favor of a bland, generic landscaping piece, declaring it “neat and tidy!” Neither Norbot, nor Wallace, understand what makes Gromit’s organic and messy garden beautiful or why gardening itself is an enjoyable act for him. Gromit finds peace and purpose in the often monotonous and tedious act of creation—a type of creation not unlike the process of stop motion animation itself.

I found myself reflecting on what makes the Aardman Animations films so special, and I think one answer lies in the way that the viewer can often see the human fingerprints of the animators in the clay. Would these be considered flaws to some? Certainly. But the purpose of art has never been technical perfection or efficiency. Art is for humans: what the act of creation means to the artist—and what the art itself means to the viewer—can never be measured in such simple—and frankly subjective—terms. Those fingerprints in the clay allow us to see the humans behind the animation, the imperfections adding a dimension of connection between the viewer and the artist. This connection is impossible with a product created by a large language model (LLM), a regurgitation of stolen data hallucinated by a void as deep and empty as Feathers Mcgraw’s stare.