Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

It’d be hard to find anyone who hasn’t heard of Wallace & Gromit, as despite being predominantly a British icon, the popularity of the beloved man and dog duo vastly expands beyond their soil. Created by Aardman Animations, these two have been able to enchant many through their highly beloved short films which featured inventive scenarios, wacky characters with incredibly impressive stop-motion technology, and a tone that while not outright hilarious, provided a warm-hearted quaintness that arguably helped solidify the English personality to the global population. While their three shorts were very highly regarded (with The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave both earning an Oscar), the characters hadn’t had the chance to be seen in theatres until 2005 when DreamWorks (as part of their joint collaboration with Aardman) released The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, allowing families the chance to see this cheese-loving pair on the big screen.

In preparation for the town’s annual vegetable competition, Wallace (voiced again by Peter Sallis) and his dog Gromit have become pest controllers, capturing any rabbits that threaten to eat their neighbors’ crops. The humane way in which they handle the bunnies gets the attention of Lady Tottington (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter), who has taken a fancy to Wallace, but also the jeer of hunter Victor Quartermaine (voiced by Ralph Fiennes), who has his own selfish interest in Tottington and isn’t shy about his dislike for Wallace and his less-than-deadly manner of handling pests. Hoping to use his new mind manipulation machine to stop the rabbits from eating the greens, Wallace inadvertently gets his mind scrambled with a bunny, which initially seems to do no harm, but quickly discovers that the town has been beset by a gargantuan rabbit monster who terrorizes their gardens at night. Crowned as the Were-Rabbit, Wallace and Gromit plan to stop the monster they’ve created in time for the vegetable competition, but Gromit quickly realizes that they may be chasing the wrong suspect.

Being the second and also last film Aardman would make with DreamWorks, Curse of the Were-Rabbit under-performed at the U.S market but did much better internationally and even got the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, making this first cinematic outing for the duo marginally effective if a bit uneven. While not as strong as their shorter form storytelling, the film still houses enough memorable moments, impressive visuals and decently entertaining writing to not feel like a large departure.

Being a take on monsters movies (specifically the hammer horror subcategory), Wallace & Gromit facing a supernatural threat of this variety does feel in line with their usual shorts (a Were-Rabbit is a term you wouldn’t normally see in something that wasn’t so proudly British), and the film does contain a lot of Aardman talent who were instrumental in the short’s original success, with creator, Nick Park, being a writer and director on the film alongside key Aardman animator, Steve Box, and Bob Baker (who co-wrote The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave) helping to co-write the film alongside Park, Box and Mark Burton. With the look, feel and attitude of the Wallace & Gromit brand still feeling in tact despite the advertising not doing the best job capturing said feel (DreamWorks has never been good with trailers), it felt like this could act as a nice evolution for the franchise, but while the movie certainly feels like Wallace & Gromit, it’s not entirely authentic to its roots, and this mainly comes from DreamWorks’ involvement.

It is now commonly known that DreamWorks and Aardman didn’t enjoy working together and only released two films before they broke their partnership, and this film felt like the breaking point, with DreamWorks’ attempts to cater towards American audience leading to a suffocation of a lot of Aardman’s style, which they saw as too British and not digestible enough. They demanded changes like the title, certain lines and phrases, acting choices (even almost getting Peter Sallis switched out for another ‘’more popular’’ actor) and even things as fickle as the type of car the characters drive, it all seemed pretty petty and ridiculously unhelpful. Even though Aardman won the right to retain their classic personality, the film feels pretty dissimilar to what they normally produce and more in line with a typical mainstream American picture. It has a heavier focus on innuendoes and referential humor, a lot of the newer characters feel pretty bland, the conflicts and resolutions are more standardized, and while nothing is truly bad in the story, it doesn’t feel as distinct or gripping as the original shorts. With that said, it’s still a well-made movie with some decent scenes, a few moments where the monster homages are adequately done with that familiar Aardman style, and while normalized by their standards, it’s still odd by mainstream kids-media standards for the time.

Wallace & Gromit thrived on their dynamic, their wacky adventures, and their antagonists, who despite being things you wouldn’t expect to make for good villains (like a penguin, a bulldog, or a jilted bread model of all things), usually came across as memorable and even a little intimidating. They made for very unforgettable shorts, so these components would need to be efficiently transitioned to the big screen if this was going to work. The plus side is that it’s pretty hard to screw up Wallace and Gromit as both are very simple but very likeable characters, and their charm is still very present here. Wallace is still a bumbling inventor who gets himself into messy situations due to his hair-brained schemes, and Gromit is the one who needs to help get him out of it and despite never speaking, is able to get across a lot of personality just through his expressions alone. Funnily enough, while the leads are handled well, the rest of the cast are where things become a problem, even when compared to the other Aardman/DreamWorks film. Chicken Run isn’t a perfect film by any means, and while it too felt Americanized in some fashion through the advertising and some of the casting, it ironically felt more like an Aardman project than this film does. It not only retained its specific sense of humor as well as that strange foreboding atmosphere, but the characters were quite memorable in both design and personality, meaning the audience was extra on board with their struggle and wanted to see them escape.

While Wallace & Gromit is much lower in stakes and has more normal human characters, most of the supporting roles are pretty tame all things considered and don’t stay in your memory for that long. Some are assisted by the voice talent, with a few of the townspeople voiced by people like Nicholas Smith, Peter Kay, Dicksen Ashworth, Liz Smith and Edward Kelsey, getting a couple of memorable funny lines, but it’s ironically the Hollywood talent that feels a little out of place. Bringing in both Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter in order to appeal to American audiences is not a bad idea as both are perfectly talented in their own rights and could fit into this environment fairly easily, but they are saddled with pretty bland roles that don’t use their strengths as actors to their advantage. Lady Tottington is just a generic love interest for Wallace, and Ralph Fiennes is just a snobbish blowhard who follows a predictable route and doesn’t result in a lot of laughs, they are definitely the weakest part of the movie.

While Curse of the Were-Rabbit has shown that Wallace & Gromit doesn’t require cinematic elements to become popular, one of the nice takeaways from being a proper movie is that it gets all the benefits of a fully budgeted cinematic release, like upgraded technology and technicals. The visuals on Wallace & Gromit have always been impressive and how they’ve helped keep stop-motion as an artform in the public eye is extremely admirable, but this is probably the best and grandest the series has looked until this point onward. The character models still have that great look and motion to them but now with an upgraded sense of fluidity, the sets are the largest they’ve ever looked and are shown off incredibly well by cinematographers, David Alex Riddett and Tristan Oliver, who feature some fun angles and perspective shots that really heighten the atmosphere and horror-ish tone in a comedic way, and even though a budget of $30 million might seem very small (at least by today’s standards), it uses that money very nicely in making this film look as good as possible.

It has a lot of fun lighting and shadow work, it retains its stop-motion personality, but the implementation of CGI is nicely utilized, and even though the shorts do feel more distinct, it is nice that this one still holds up well all these years later. The musical score is also upgraded, still housing the familiar theme song and sound thanks to being composed by the same person responsible for the original theme, Julian Nott, but through a cinematic lens and assistance from the great Hans Zimmer, is also paired alongside a fuller orchestra and a wider variety of melodies and styles to create a fully formed musical piece, it brings a lot of character to the film.

Wallace & Gromit is always going to be iconic, and with a new film released on Netflix that also did very well, it’s nice that even after all this time, people are still hungry for more, with Curse of the Were-Rabbit no doubt helping keep that spirit alive. It’s unfortunate that for the first and so far, only one to go theatrical, it is easily the worst example of their line-up, but since said line-up is so well-tuned, that is honestly not a terrible place to be in. The film is not a bad watch and contains a few decent lines, scenes and visuals, but it more so acts as a nice stepping off point into the shorts and other Aardman material, as they have a bit more bite and creativity behind them, whereas this one feels a bit safer and even a bit more predictable. Not the craziest fare to witness, but certainly an odd one worth munching down on for a sightly cracking time.