Directors:
Nick Park and Steve Box
Featuring the voices of:
Peter Sallis……….Wallace
Ralph Fiennes……….Lord Victor Quartermaine
Helena Bonham Carter……….Lady Tottington
Peter Kay……….PC Mackintosh
Liz Smith……….Mrs. Mulch
Nicholas Smith……….Rev. Clement Hedges
DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Features present Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Written by Bob Baker, Steve Box, Mark Burton and Nick Park. Running time: 85 minutes. Rated G.
The movie:
It’s taken sixteen years but Wallace and Gromit finally have their own full-length movie. The two are questionably the most revered characters in the world of animation. Thinking back to other extraordinary animated tandems there has been Woody and Buzz Lightyear of Toy Story fame, Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, Sylvester and Tweety. Those duos are fun, but Wallace and Gromit are in a league of their own. To explain this pair to someone who has never seen their animated shorts, I would say W & G are Penn and Teller for a younger audience. They complement each other wonderfully. Wallace is an inventor who has a fondness for cheese; Gromit is a dog who doesn’t speak. For three animated shorts this pair has strayed far from ordinary. They have taken a trip to the moon; have had run-ins with a criminal penguin; and Gromit has been framed for sheep rustling.
In Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, they are faced with probably their greatest test. The townsfolk, including Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter), are prepping their carrots, zucchinis, and succulent melons in lieu of the 517th annual Giant Vegetable festival. It is the job of W & G to police the gardens and greenhouses and make sure rabbits aren’t devouring the vegetation.
Their company is named Anti-Pesto. A nice moniker since they rid vermin but do so humanely. No poison or bullets are needed when you have an inventor like Wallace. He has an ingenious device, the Bun-Vac 6000 that sucks the rabbits out of their holes through a giant tube and into an awaiting glass chamber. It can get up to 125 RPM’s (rabbits per minute). Upon sucking up the rabbits, W & G take them home and store them away in the basement, a mini Anti-Pesto headquarters.
With a rising rabbit epidemic, Wallace has an idea that will make the fuzzy bunnies sick of eating carrots. “Just a little harmless brain altering,” Wallace tells his canine companion. By putting the Mind Manipulation-o-Matic on his head, he is able to flip a switch that allows his brain waves to hypnotize the rabbits into not liking vegetables. Gromit, who cleans up after his master when he makes a mess, does so again when the machine malfunctions and the rabbit’s brain waves interact with Wallace’s own.
As the movie progresses a conflict arises when Lord Victor Quartermaine sees Lady Tottington and Wallace together. Quartermaine, in what I can only assume is a play off the legendary fictional swashbuckler Alan Quartermain, is a willing suitor who sports a toupee that isn’t fooling anybody. Voiced by the versatile Ralph Fiennes, Victor is an aristocrat, but by no means the perfect match for Lady Tottington. He just wants to marry her for her riches. He also wants to discredit Wallace and his Anti-Pesto operation. This way, the dimwitted inventor, and his little dog, won’t be a nuisance. Ah, but before that can happen a situation with the mysterious Were-Rabbit occurs. I don’t want to give too much away with the Were-Rabbit or his midnight snack feasting of zucchini and carrots. But I will say this is the first ever Vegetation horror picture.
To describe this film by British animator Nick Park, and his directing partner Steve Box, is to call it a labor of love. An undertaking like Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is not for the weak-minded. Using a modern form of stop-motion animation the production crew was able to get three usable seconds of footage a day. That’s why it took five years to create. The crew constructed 32 miniature sets and fashioned hundreds of characters out of 2.8 tons of Plasticine, a brand of modeling clay, and glue. CGI is employed to some extent to create effects that Plasticine could not do alone. The illusion of fog, for instance.
It’s easy to be amazed by the painstaking attention to detail; but if all you do is look at animation you’ll miss some of the best jokes.
In an age where hand drawn animation is considered passé in favor of computer animation, it’s nice to see that stop-motion animation is a breed apart. Movies like Chicken Run, the original W & G shorts, and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride are proof that there’s a market for this type of animation. The problem now is wondering when another W & G adventure will come about. I’m guessing around 2010 or 2012.
Score: 9/10
The DVD:
VIDEO: How does it look?
(Presented in 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen)
An excellent movie deserves an excellent transfer, right? The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is exceptional on DVD. The colors and image detail are absolutely stunning, and there are no inconsistencies or digital hiccups. Edge Enhancement, which plagues several films on DVD, is not present. A solid visual presentation, overall.
Score: 9/10
AUDIO: How does it sound?
(English and French Dolby Digital 5.1; English and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0)
The 5.1 audio mix makes for a very nice sounding audio presentation. And, it comes in handy when trying to differentiate between the types of British accents. If you can’t understand some of the dialogue, the DVD comes with English subtitles. I didn’t need them, but they are there. The entire movie has an animated (no pun intended) atmosphere about it. Beware of the organ player at church.
Score: 8/10
SPECIAL FEATURES: Fun features that young and old can enjoy!!!
We begin with a full-length cheese-a-rific Cracking Commentary with Nick Park and Steve Box, the co-writers and co-directors of this full-length W & G tale. The duo is laid back and down-to-earth while commenting on the laborious task of bringing W & G to the big screen. The problem is figuring out who’s talking at a given time. Peter Sallis (the voice of Wallace) had this problem when he recorded his lines for the film. When Park or Box was in the room with him, Sallis could close his eyes and not be able to distinguish which is which. The directors reference movies like the original Fly and The Silence of the Lambs, and the Alfred Hitchcock style of moviemaking when talking about their vegetable horror flick. When they aren’t talking the screen is silent, but at least they had plenty to say regarding the Church scene. This scene alone took a year to create.
There are a total of nine deleted scenes (13:11 for all) that have optional commentary. The scenes are from various stages of completion. Some are strictly storyboards, while others are not totally animated. They consist of an alternate opening with a deleted PC (Police Constable) Mac scene tacked on; two alternate endings; and “The Anti-Pesto Song”.
The next group of extras is featurettes about Aardman Studios and the making of The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
How Wallace and Gromit Went to Hollywood is a 20-minute piece on the history of W & G and Aardman animation. Besides Wallace & Gromit, the studio has made Creature Comforts, which won the Best Animated Short Film Oscar in 1991. As for the inventor and his canine, well, they have won numerous accolades and awards, including two Oscars in the animated short category. And if you can believe it, Wallace’s fondness for cheese also saved a creamery. Wensleydale Cheese.
The behind-the-scenes featurette and A Day in the Life at Aardman are standard EPK material. The latter, at least, takes you on a tour of the Bristol location where the crew plans, constructs, and shoots. This feature must have been recorded prior to the opening of Wallace and Gromit in the States, since the studio burned down during the first weekend.
If you ever wondered how they made all those cute and fuzzy bunnies all you to do is watch How to Build a Bunny. Harriet Thomas, a creator of Plasticine models, shows you how to construct your own in three-and-a-half minutes.
You also get a strange 1997 animated short by Steve Box called Stage Fright. Available with optional commentary from Box, the movie involves a dog juggler, his female partner, and a movie star. This isn’t a love triangle, but rather a business relationship that goes awry when the dog juggler loses one of his dogs.
Nearing the end of the extras is a preview montage for DreamWorks animation on DVD and a Photo Gallery (here it’s called “The Family Album”). The gallery has storyboards, photos of the production crew in action, photos of Wallace & Gromit, and different signs and decals seen throughout the movie.
Hidden in the DreamWorks Kids section is a Cracking Contraptions feature containing three very short shorts about Wallace’s miscalculated inventions: The Snoozatron; The 525 Crackervac; and Shopper 13. Finishing those you can enjoy games and activities like Victor Quartermaine’s Guide to Cool and the Anti-Pesto S.W.A.T. Team game.
Score: 7/10
