Film Review: Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is Aardman's first full length feature on the plasticine characters. I have been a big fan of Nick Park productions ever since watching the original Creature Comforts (1990) and ITV's 2003 series. Also the telly ads for PG Tips and Jacobs were also nicely done.

I expect some of you would probably have seen Chicken Run, Aardman's first feature film. If not then you should. It isn't half as good as this but it is still funny.


Aardman's Creature Comforts

Previously Wallace and Gromit have also appeared in three short films as main characters. Spare me a couple of sentences as I describe them a little bit first. Wallace is an inventor who loves cheese. His partner is Gromit, a dog, and is always mute. In a way Gromit is actually more intelligent than Wallace. They live in a house full of contraptions (some of which are based on real inventions).



Anyhow, in Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Wallace (Peter Sallis) and Gromit of the veggie farms protection squad 'Anti-Pesto' has their usual time catching cute little bunnies. This is due to the coming annual local giant vegetable competition. Running out of 'storage' space for the captured rabbits, Wallace devised a contraption to brainwash the furry little things into hating greens.

Without warning sprang the 'Were-Rabbit', a cursed giant monster of a bunny who eats everything veggies during full moons. Lady Tottington (Helene Bonham Carter) pleads with the comic pair to capture the rabbit in a 'humane' way while her suitor, Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes) attempts to do it the painful way - by killing it.

The humour is very much adult targeted. I am pleased to see the many nods to classic horror films such as King Kong, The Curse of the Werewolf, The Curse of Frankenstein, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde etc.

I pronounce this the funniest film of the year, and along with Sin City, one of the finest films you should see this year.

Madagascar: The Christmas Caper

Commissioned by Dreamworks Animation SKG, the film was preceded by a animation short, Madagascar: The Christmas Caper, by Dreamworks own in-house animators. Which is a shameful plug promoting their less than stellar Madagascar DVD me thinks. It wasn't as funny and any humour that was in it, was crude and lame in almost every other way.