WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT: 4 STARS
People fondly remember Chicken Run, the Aardman Animation claymation hit from 2000, but they love the plasticine pals Wallace and Gromit. The big-screen debut for the cheese-loving inventor and his mute and long-suffering canine side-kick will satisfy viewers who, up until now, made do with watching the shorts A Grand Day Out and The Wrong Trousers.
The story takes place days before the annual Giant Vegetable Competition. Wallace and Gromit’s pest control company—Anti-Pesto—must do battle with a floppy-eared mutant rabbit who is nibbling on all the oversized vegetables.
Co-writer and director Nick Park has loaded the movie with fanciful Ruben Goldberg-like contraptions; visual gags, bad puns—the cheese loving Wallace’s bookshelf features titles like East of Edam and Grated Expectations—as well as some double-entendres for the parents in the audience. There is at least one pretty good in-joke in there for film geeks too—a snippet of Art Garfunkel’s song Bright Eyes, from the rabbit-themed cartoon Watership Down, is heard on a car stereo. Park also tips his hat to the British love of gardening, King Kong and the Hammer Horror movies.
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is smart family entertainment—funny and textured enough that the whole family can enjoy it.
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