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PLOT: With their new humane pest control biz, Wallace and his savvy dog Gromit are hired by village gardeners to save prize veggies from a rampaging rabbit. The horrifying decision: Kill it or capture it?
Plasticine is a pliable goop made by mixing clay, oil and colour pigments. For most of us, it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine turning the blob into characters as lovable, as lasting and as effective as Wallace & Gromit.
But British animator Nick Park, a man-child working here with collaborator and co-director Steve Box, has the kind of Peter Pan imagination to create a whole world out of clay, a world so rich in emotion it always seemed real in the Wallace & Gromit shorts.
Now hapless inventor Wallace and his faithful dog Gromit are making their big-screen debut, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. The movie is sheer delight, a giddy romp packed with action and romance and humour and more vegetables than a winter stew.
It is suitable for any child who can follow a complicated story -- although there are some scary bits -- and it is equally appealing to the child hiding in any adult.
The appeal of the movie rests in the sophisticated relationship Park has developed between his leads. Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) is a doofus, an eccentric British bumpkin who is forever inventing an elaborate machine to absurdly perform simple daily tasks.
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Gromit is his silent sidekick, an animal who is obviously much smarter than his human. Expressing his surprise, disdain and/or genuine affection with his expressive brows, Gromit is constantly trying to save Wallace from some fresh calamity of his own making.
In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, the calamity is enormous. It comes in the menacing form of a giant, mutant rabbit who threatens to ravage all of the prize vegetables being grown by the village's dedicated gardeners.
Given that Wallace & Gromit now run their own pest control business -- specializing in the humane capture of veggie-chomping bunnies -- the monster is their concern.
Success in this endeavour could help Wallace in his romantic liaison with Lady Tottingham (the squashed, squinched and amusing voice of Helena Bonham Carter). His rival is a pompous, bunny-hating hunter named Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes, at his silliest).
There are crazed complications in this quest, of course, and The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit manages to engage us in a relentless adventure from beginning to end.
Cinema fans will have extra fun. Park, a movie junkie, layers in references to a variety of flicks, some in the specific, some in the general genre. The Wolf Man (the 1941 version with Lon Chaney Jr.) and King Kong (the 1933 original) are both specific. Generalities include the Ealing comedies, Sherlock Holmes flicks, some Hitchcock and, of course, all the old Universal horror movies.
Youngsters who do not know these references need not worry. Like sensational Chicken Run -- a 2000 claymation version of The Great Escape made by the same team at Aardman -- it works just as well all on its own.
Playing with plasticine turns out to be a work of art, if the goop falls into the right hands.
BOTTOM LINE: Equally engaging for both parents and their offspring of all ages, this claymation animated movie, which features claymation superstars Wallace & Gromit, is unabashed fun for the whole family.
Cheesy fun facts
We just love Wallace & Gromit. How could you not?
After all, these claymation critters have their own official cheese, an English specialty called Wallace & Gromit Wensleydale. We hear it is selling like crazy.
With that in mind, we offer more fun facts about the two most famous characters ever fashioned out of plasticine.
* In their 1989 debut short, A Grand Day Out, Wallace built a wallpapered rocket ship to travel to the moon just to sample the cheese. The first moon cheese he tastes proves elusive in flavour. Wallace speculates on Wensleydale, then Stilton, then: "It's like no other cheese I've ever tasted."
* In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, books in Wallace's library include East Of Edam and Fromage To Eternity. Gromit also reads. In The Wrong Trousers, he eats "Korn Flakes" while perusing The Republic, by Pluto (not Plato).
* The Latin motto for Tottingham Manor -- where Helena Bonham Carter's Lady Tottingham lives in Were-Rabbit -- is said to translate to: "Manure Liberates Us All," although it was intended as: "Free Manure For Everyone."
* Gromit enjoys knitting when not saving Wallace from a crisis. We can only assume he makes sweaters Wallace wears.
* Wallace and Gromit both read newspapers. Headlines are often absurdly funny. In Wrong Trousers, one reads, "Moon Cheese Shares Soar!," a reference to A Grand Day Out.
* To develop a sound for the bunny-loving, eco-toff gardener Lady Tottingham, Bonham Carter had her lover -- filmmaker Tim Burton -- ship over a collection of fake teeth from his Planet Of The Apes re-make. She inserted them to "find the voice" and assume a manner. Then she took them out to actually record the dialogue you hear in Were-Rabbit.
* Movie freak Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park likes to refer to classics. Posters seen around town in Were-Rabbit include Carrot On A Hot Tin Roof and Spartichoke.
* The Anti-Pesto vehicle Wallace drives in Were-Rabbit is an A35 Austin Van with functioning suspension, lights, etc. Various scale models of the A35 each cost more than an original van did in the 1960s (and Park owns one). The movie van is in Preston Green, a tribute to Park's home town.
* Wallace & Gromit rarely do endorsements. Says Park: "We've had leaner times (at Aardman Animations) where we've been kind of forced to go commercial with them because we needed the money. But we've had to choose the subject so they're not seen everywhere on everything. In Britain, they've just advertised cheese and crackers."
(This film is rated G)