• Directed by: Nick Park, Steve Box
• Written by: Nick Park, Steve Box, Bob Baker, Mark Burton
• Release Date: October 07, 2005
• 85 Minutes

     It’s always a surprise when you hit an anniversary for something you so fondly remember coming out, but it definitely wasn’t a surprise that Wallace and Gromit eventually got their own movie.
     It never seemed like a case of ‘what if’ so much as ‘when’, since the lovable duo had debuted just shy of 16 years prior to the film and had built a strong, affectionate fanbase with three animated shorts that rank as some of the best pieces of work in the medium, not just for Britain but in general. We’ll eventually visit the shorts down the line and talk about them individually, but it’s easy to see, going back, just why Wallace and Gromit are adored and held in high regard by so many, and lots of what people loved to begin with are here in full force.

     Wallace and Gromit’s Anti-Pesto company is going splendid, with the entire town relying on them and their expertise in apprehending any vegetable munching vermin that may be a risk to their yards and dealing with them in a humane way, especially with the annual vegetable competition fast approaching. Lady Tottington asks the duo for help over gun-toting (and goo-goo eyed for her) hunter Victor Quartermaine to gather a ton of rabbits from her yard and, based on a brilliant idea Wallace has born from his distaste of the veggie diet Gromit has him on, attempts a brainwash test on a rabbit to rid him of his vegetable needs. But something goes wrong, and a new threat looms over the vegetable contest…

     After a great opening credits sequence that sweetly showcases Wallace and Gromit through their years together (including some incredible facial hair from a younger Wallace), I consistently, on every rewatch, immediately fall in love with the film. It doesn’t have to do with the fact that this is a Wallace and Gromit adventure and I’m happy to see them again, but the atmosphere you are plunged into. The camera movements, wet streets with puddles, the fog, the full moon, the lone policeman walking down empty, quiet streets all perfectly capture the classic horror film feel of the likes of Hammer or Amicus and the film is littered with great shots and scenes that really takes advantage of Aardman’s return to the big screen.
The bigger budget and platform don’t just lend themselves to great individual shots as Aardman really laid out some fantastic set pieces here. I could easily point towards the whirlwind finale (complete with King Kong reference) but, for me, the sequence that constantly stands out is the chase scene involving Gromit in the Anti-Pesto van and the Were-Rabbit. It’s beautifully realized and laid out, with the initial car chase portion alone being exciting and impressive (I love the must-have close-up action shot of the van wheels as Gromit whips to a stop & turn) and it builds up to the equally great ‘rodeo’ portion that moves underground, where I’m constantly in awe at all the spraying mud and how long the tunnel bit may have taken as a whole.

     Of course, there are gags and jokes from all angles here, as expected. The Wallace and Gromit shorts have always had a wonderful sense of humour, but a lot of my favourite humorous memories of the series comes from the mastery of timing on display. That conniving chicken penguin Feathers McGraw has always been a great example not just of Aardman’s ability to capture so much in so little, but the timing used to make the character more effective. Here, there are multiple instances where the timing alone is so perfect it’s unnecessary for much else to be added on in order to make it hit. Whenever I think about this movie I genuinely constantly go to the simple shot where, in the middle of Lord Quartermaine attempting to get into fisticuffs with Wallace and a looming full moon, Gromit in the van casually reaches over to the doors locks to pop them down. What’s especially great about it is that, as clearly as I remember it, it’s somehow always even funnier when I watch it again.

     There’s a lot of great humour from the expanded residency needed for a full-length feature and I adore the townspeople. The old horror requisite of a town meeting at the church in particular is wonderfully played out, with a number of people getting some good moments to shine that easily establishes them further as their own, lived in characters that complement the main cast well.

     Peter Sallis is, like always, brilliant as Wallace and gets some great moments to shine through comedy and tenderness, with some scenes involving Lady Tottington that swing well between being funny and sweet.
     Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes were the two major additions here and, as performers, are great. Fiennes is hilarious here with how easily he is able to imbue Victor Quartermaine with snobbish self-importance and has some great comedic line-reads that, at the time, many may not have really seen or expected from him. Bonham Carter, meanwhile, two weeks prior to this saw the release of Corpse Bride, so she had two great performances in two great stop-motion films, and she fills Tottington with such easy lovability that I really wish she had stuck around past this film.
    There’s plenty I could say about Gromit but will simply sum it up by my (and many other’s) general feelings; Gromit is one of the greatest characters ever, easily on the Mount Rushmore of silent characters and straight men and an absolute treasure of expression. I visited London for the first time this year and was able to get my hands on a Gromit plush, which ranks as one of the best things to happen to me in a few years. Not to overblow it or anything.

    Interestingly enough, the production wasn’t as necessarily smooth as it seems from the finished product, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the time-consuming art of stop-motion animation. Aardman, at this time, was working with Dreamworks as their distributors. Unfortunately, Dreamworks had some slight changes they wanted implemented during the production of the film.
     With the hope that the film would be a big money maker for them, they wanted the ‘Britishness’ of the film scaled back to easier connect with the American audience and they wanted Peter Sallis to be replaced by a major star, both of which director/creator Nick Park refused since the charm of the series lay in its British quirkiness and, I mean, replacing Peter Sallis as Wallace is a mind-boggling request. It’s always been a point of conversation about famous stars taking the place of voice actors in animated films, but here it makes even less sense than most other times. Wallace and Gromit, by this point, had been long established as being what it is, it had a large group of fans. Also, out of the three shorts Aardman had made at this point, two of them had won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. The series was obviously doing something right, it’s not like Dreamworks was bestowing this small, little known cult favourite with the opportunity of a lifetime.

    In the end, the film did alright enough, but not enough for Dreamworks, and after the behind-the-scenes hassle of this film (even having ridiculous issues like Wallace’s car type) and Flushed Away next year, Aardman and Dreamworks ended their working partnership.
     I do have to say, there is one slight change Aardman ended up making, once asked, that I am okay with. The original subtitle of the film was supposed to be ‘The Great Vegetable Plot’, and while that works in the line of Wallace and Gromit film titles – that they focus on such everyday normal things that are hilariously mundane in the grand scheme of adventures – I do love the ‘Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ subtitle, obviously a direct tie to Hammer’s Curse of the Werewolf film, it works on capturing the love of films and stories that influenced them here and works well since the film, like always, is littered with fantastic references and slight nods to other classic films and monsters.

    Since it’s release there has been some conversations and theorizing over whether the end product is completely what Aardman had set out to make or, if that was the case, what changes they may have made to the story (that we don’t know about) in order to comply/keep Dreamworks off their back, even for a bit. Still, if the film does happen to be slightly removed from the original vision of the creators, Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit still holds up incredibly well.