Divalicious Review! Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
By Caroline Cao | February 5, 2025 | Beauty & Style
The eccentric, oblivious inventor Wallace (Ben Whitehead) and and his silent canine Gromit are the two mascots of Aardman Animations stop-motion. Their latest movie, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, is directed by its creator Nick Park, co-directed with Merlin Crossingham, and the pair hadn’t lost their charms.
First things first, the latest Wallace and Gromit feature film has a very lovely addition: voice actress Lauren Patel as PC Mukherjee, a new constable working alongside Chief Inspector Albert Mackintosh (Peter Kay returning to the role after Curse of the Were-Rabbit). Finally, a prominent female character who isn’t Wallace’s love interest.
The movie follows the 1993 short The Wrong Trousers. After 30 years, the evil penguin Feathers McGraw is back. He may be imprisoned in a zoo, but he can still hatch a scheme from within. What exactly makes Feathers sing as a classic Bond villain is his non-threatening plain expression and petite stature. And yet, as he does his pull-ups in his prison, he’s a visceral threat.
Wallace & Gromit also has something to say about technological dependency. Wallace builds Gromit a gardening robot-gnome. The little gnome is decidedly not attuned to Gromit’s wishes. The film’s finale suggests there can be a balance between the technological while some lines shouldn’t be crossed.
I was blessed to see the film with parents and their children at the New York International Children’s Film Festival. It was such a reactive audience that I remained unsure why the film wasn’t given a wider theatrical release before it landed on Netflix streaming.
Images: Netflix
