A Feathered Menace Triumphantly Returns in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

It’s a testament to the effectiveness of an animated story if it can immerse you in its setting and familiarize you with the essence of its characters in a matter of minutes, even if the setting and characters in question are beloved icons that are nevertheless almost totally unknown to the viewer. In this specific instance, I am the ignorant viewer in question: Despite being plenty familiar with the image and general idea of the British stop-motion animated Wallace & Gromit franchise, which has delighted cinemagoers and resulted in several other successful spin-offs (such as Shaun the Sheep) since 1989, I’ve never actually watched any of the duo’s films until now. And that makes the instantly approachable nature of creator Nick Park’s work all the more apparent in the upcoming, Netflix-hosted feature film Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl–within minutes of sitting down to stream a press preview, it began to feel like I’d known the titular duo for decades already. That’s how winningly and simply effective the archetype of these characters remains to this day–it doesn’t matter if you don’t know a thing about them; they still win you over immediately.

The duo in question is of course Wallace (Ben Whitehead), an eccentric and highly optimistic if impractical inventor living in a small, Northern English hamlet, and his faithful dog and best friend Gromit, the beagle whose lot in life has seemingly been to frequently clean up his absent-minded master’s messes. They are the classic comedy dyad in action: Wallace is the enterprising kook who is constantly coming up with questionable new inventions that will supposedly make life easier or more enjoyable, and Gromit is the more earthy, grounded and sensible straight man whose apprehension is perpetually ignored. Wallace’s work creates mischief and chaos; Gromit’s tenacity and faithfulness helps to set things right again. The takeaway, of course, is that Wallace is lucky his indefatigable friend is always there for him, rather than Gromit finally cutting bait to find a new partner who generates fewer calamities.

And the silent Gromit has good reason to be fed up, this time around, as Wallace has outdone himself in the invention department with the creation of “Norbot,” a mechanized, robotic garden gnome intended in theory to lighten Gromit’s load. Indeed, the invention actually succeeds well beyond Wallace’s aspirations, becoming the talk of the town as neighbors cajole him for their own Nortbots to take care of all the yardwork and home maintenance. But Wallace simultaneously begins to drive a wedge between himself and Gromit through his tunnel-visioned focus on this new, seemingly “superior” companion, introducing a little, largely unspoken jealousy into the duo’s dynamic. And this (lightly) fractured friendship is still enough of a fault for the dastardly genius of Feathers McGraw–the returning antagonist of 1993’s The Wrong Trousers–to exploit when he reprograms what is now a veritable army of Norbots for evil mischief. Vengeance Most Fowl indeed.

The film is never funnier than in its establishing of Feathers McGraw as a villainous icon–it was a stroke of genius for Park to design the criminal penguin (occasionally disguised as a chicken) with a completely immobile, emotionless face rather than one that can actively snarl or grin. McGraw’s beady little eyes tell the whole story, helped along by dramatic framing, lighting and musical cues that all communicate what we need to know: This silent bird is the greatest threat to society that mankind has ever known. Behold, as he sinisterly bides his time in the zoo that is his prison, doing chin ups on the pipework as he hones his body and mind for an inevitable reunion with the good-natured duo who first had him locked up decades prior. You think your prison can hold him? This is Feathers McGraw we’re talking about, here. As long as he still draws breath, he’s coming for you.