What would Terminator 2’s Judgment Day look like in Aardman’s world? Vengeance Most Fowl, the Bristol animators’ first Wallace and Gromit caper since 2008 short A Matter of Loaf and Death, is the typically charming, inventive and ridiculously English answer to that hypothetical. Much more upbeat, basically, and with more turnips.
Instead of killer cyborgs, this tale of revenge and larceny unleashes an army of evil robot gnomes (voiced by Reece Shearsmith) under the control of still-sinister penguin Feathers McGraw. Wallace has levelled up on his inventions, flooding his house with mechanical gadgets, and enabling Nick Park and co-director Merlin Crossingham to deliver their own version of a cautionary tale on the perils of AI – albeit one that’s about as hard-edged as a tea cosy. ‘See how embracing technology makes our lives better!’ Wallace tells his long-suffering pooch, like Lancashire’s answer to a tech bro, before unleashing his new gnome helper, Norbot, on an unsuspecting town.
But from behind bars, Feathers is plotting revenge against the duo who foiled his diamond heist in 1993’s The Wrong Trousers. He’s had 31 years to master computer hacking, and is soon taking control of Norbot and wrecking havoc.
It’s Aardman’s ridiculously English answer to Terminator 2
If Vengeance Most Fowl’s core dynamic – the guileless Wallace’s obliviousness to his dependence on his brainy beagle sidekick, and the pooch’s own stifled sense of frustration and hurt – hasn’t changed a jot down the years, Aardman’s animation definitely has. There’s nothing quite as showstopping as The Wrong Trousers’ train sequence here, but the detail and fluidity of the action set pieces, including a canal boat chase with a flurry of corking visual jokes, could just be stop-motion’s answer to a Mission: Impossible movie.
The vocal switch from the late Peter Sallis to new voice-of-Wallace Ben Whitehead is seamless, too, while OG fans will appreciate the cheery movie riffs and one very funny callback to the A Grand Day Out, the Wallace and Gromit short that got it all started back in 1989.
There’s a few other enjoyable additions to the ensemble, including a return for The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’s dim-witted Chief Inspector Mackintosh (Peter Kay) and his brainy, chatterbox assistant, PC Mukherjee (Lauren Patel).
But it’s the two characters with no dialogue at all, Gromit and Feathers, who steal the show – a pair of silent cinema-style adversaries sparring in another joyfully Aardman nostalgic caper. The Bristolians don’t move at lightspeed, of course, but here’s hoping the next one is along a bit sooner.
On BBC iPlayer and BBC One Dec 24 in the UK. On Netflix in all other countries from Jan 3, 2025.