On viewing the new WALLACE & GROMIT DVD
Feb. 13th, 2006 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thatcrazycajunI absolutely love Wallace & Gromit, and I don't care who knows it. I have been enchanted by the stop-motion antics of this eccentric plasticine pair, created by Nick Park and Britain's Aardman Animations studios, since the US release of their third made-for-BBC-TV short featurette, "A Close Shave." (This short and its predecessor, "The Wrong Trousers," both won Academy Awards for Best Short Film-Animated from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences; and all three of the shorts are also available on a separate DVD.) So when news that the dynamic duo were to appear in their first-ever full-length movie hit my house, I was stoked.
Last November, the film, WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT, arrived at theaters in this country, courtesy of Aardman's new partner, DreamWorks Animation SKG. I missed it in the theatrical run, but now the film is available on DVD for home viewing; and I was delighted to see that the cheese-cherishing, contraption-cobbling Wallace and his long-suffering but loyal pet dog/assistant, Gromit, have not lost a thing in their transition to the big screen. Oddly enough, this time they have some big-time acting talent in their corner, in the form of Merchant & Ivory mainstays Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes, but the two of them actually have lesser credentials than their clay co-stars (neither has won an Oscar, though both have been nominated).
The DVD more than makes up for having missed out on the theater experience. In addition to the truly delightful film itself, extras abound for both adults and children, from the "day in the life" short in which an Aardman animator takes viewers on a studio tour, to the games featuring W&G and other key characters. There's even a bonus non-W&G short, "Stage Fright," a poignant and at-times-frightful tale of a luckless vaudevillian victimized by changing times and a bullying movie star. (Naturally, this being an Aardman film, the frightful parts are mild enough not to give children nightmares...or parents worries.)
But the star of the package is, as it should be, the "feature presentation," a typically wild-and-woolly (though not as much of the latter as previous shorts, whose cast included a rather large and acrobatic contingent of sheep) adventure set in the unnamed country village in England that is the home of Wallace & Gromit and their newest venture, a pest control company called Anti-Pesto (get it? -- such atrocious puns are everywhere in this film; be warned). As the village population feverishly prepares for the local annual giant-vegetable contest, our heroes spend their nights flushing out would-be midnight snackers among the local rabbits from villagers' gardens, using Wallace's patented Rube-Goldberg-would-be-proud inventions. (Even Gromit is not immune to the competitive mania; he's seen lovingly cultivating a huge watermelon for the contest.)
Carter provides the voice of the potential love interest for Wallace, a somewhat dotty and very wealthy local noblewoman named Lady Campanula Tottington, who sponsors the contest and holds it on her grand estate each year. (Why Wallace, or anyone, could be attracted to a woman who looks so much like a clown, with a white face and a very large, orange hairdo, is never suitably explained; but then, I never got what Popeye and Bluto saw in that whiny, skinny-assed Olive Oyl either.) Fiennes voices the film's requisite villain, a bloodthirsty cad of a would-be suitor for Lady T. named Victor Quartermaine (and the only character who looks more outlandishly ugly than Her Ladyship). Hilarity ensues as the intrepid (but humane) Anti-Pesto rabbit-rousters discover that a huge, hulking were-rabbit is preying on local "veg" by the full moon's light and set out to capture it (not realizing its true identity, which is shockingly close to home). The climactic airborne battle between Gromit and Quartermaine's menacing bulldog, Philip, and Quartermaine's efforts to put a golden bullet into the giant, floppy-eared monster as it does a King Kong-style climb up the stately spires of Tottington Hall, are worth the cost of the disc all by themselves. But there's plenty else to love for both grown-ups and the younger set, and the disc rewards repeated viewing with clever visual gags and puns that might not be caught on first view.
Whether you have tots in the house or not, WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT is an excellent addition to anyone's DVD library. Two paws way up! Now if only we could get the folks at Aardman to give Gumby his long-awaited comeback film...
Last November, the film, WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT, arrived at theaters in this country, courtesy of Aardman's new partner, DreamWorks Animation SKG. I missed it in the theatrical run, but now the film is available on DVD for home viewing; and I was delighted to see that the cheese-cherishing, contraption-cobbling Wallace and his long-suffering but loyal pet dog/assistant, Gromit, have not lost a thing in their transition to the big screen. Oddly enough, this time they have some big-time acting talent in their corner, in the form of Merchant & Ivory mainstays Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes, but the two of them actually have lesser credentials than their clay co-stars (neither has won an Oscar, though both have been nominated).
The DVD more than makes up for having missed out on the theater experience. In addition to the truly delightful film itself, extras abound for both adults and children, from the "day in the life" short in which an Aardman animator takes viewers on a studio tour, to the games featuring W&G and other key characters. There's even a bonus non-W&G short, "Stage Fright," a poignant and at-times-frightful tale of a luckless vaudevillian victimized by changing times and a bullying movie star. (Naturally, this being an Aardman film, the frightful parts are mild enough not to give children nightmares...or parents worries.)
But the star of the package is, as it should be, the "feature presentation," a typically wild-and-woolly (though not as much of the latter as previous shorts, whose cast included a rather large and acrobatic contingent of sheep) adventure set in the unnamed country village in England that is the home of Wallace & Gromit and their newest venture, a pest control company called Anti-Pesto (get it? -- such atrocious puns are everywhere in this film; be warned). As the village population feverishly prepares for the local annual giant-vegetable contest, our heroes spend their nights flushing out would-be midnight snackers among the local rabbits from villagers' gardens, using Wallace's patented Rube-Goldberg-would-be-proud inventions. (Even Gromit is not immune to the competitive mania; he's seen lovingly cultivating a huge watermelon for the contest.)
Carter provides the voice of the potential love interest for Wallace, a somewhat dotty and very wealthy local noblewoman named Lady Campanula Tottington, who sponsors the contest and holds it on her grand estate each year. (Why Wallace, or anyone, could be attracted to a woman who looks so much like a clown, with a white face and a very large, orange hairdo, is never suitably explained; but then, I never got what Popeye and Bluto saw in that whiny, skinny-assed Olive Oyl either.) Fiennes voices the film's requisite villain, a bloodthirsty cad of a would-be suitor for Lady T. named Victor Quartermaine (and the only character who looks more outlandishly ugly than Her Ladyship). Hilarity ensues as the intrepid (but humane) Anti-Pesto rabbit-rousters discover that a huge, hulking were-rabbit is preying on local "veg" by the full moon's light and set out to capture it (not realizing its true identity, which is shockingly close to home). The climactic airborne battle between Gromit and Quartermaine's menacing bulldog, Philip, and Quartermaine's efforts to put a golden bullet into the giant, floppy-eared monster as it does a King Kong-style climb up the stately spires of Tottington Hall, are worth the cost of the disc all by themselves. But there's plenty else to love for both grown-ups and the younger set, and the disc rewards repeated viewing with clever visual gags and puns that might not be caught on first view.
Whether you have tots in the house or not, WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT is an excellent addition to anyone's DVD library. Two paws way up! Now if only we could get the folks at Aardman to give Gumby his long-awaited comeback film...
