The wacky English inventor Wallace is back with his dog Gromit for second feature-length film, “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.”  As the title suggestion, the film features more puns and a feathery villain from the past who seeks revenge.

Produced by Aardman Animations and directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, the stop-motion animation “Vengeance Most Fowl” features a new voice. Peter Sallis originally voiced Wallace, but retired in 2010. Ben Whitehead takes over, but he’s voiced Wallace in video games and TV commercials since 2008.

Wrong Trousers

While intrepid amateur inventor Wallace did get the twosome to the moon in the 1989 Oscar-nominated animation short “A Grand Day Out,” the film “Vengeance Most Fowl” is more like the 1993 Oscar-winning “The Wrong Trousers.” In that 29-minute short, directed by Park (and written by Park, Bob Baker and Brian Sibley), as a birthday present, the well-meaning Wallace gives Gromit the robotic “techno-trousers” to take Gromit on walks. At the same time, Wallace has bills to pay and to make ends meet, he rents a room to a strange bird that takes an interest in the robotic trousers.

Gromit discovered that the bird is Feathers McGraw, a penguin criminal who disguises himself as a chicken by wearing a red rubber glove on his head. Feathers is planning to use the trousers to steal a rare and very large blue diamond from the city museum. The short includes one of the best train scenes in animation history (or maybe the best chase scene of all-time) and ends with Feathers McGraw imprisoned in the city zoo and Wallace paying off his debts with the reward money. In case you forgot or totally missed it, the official Wallace & Gromit YouTube channel has the nearly 3-minute-long sequence ready for your viewing:

In “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” Wallace has plenty of inventions to make his own life easier such as the dress-omatic, but he has again decided to make Gromit’s life better, too. The pat-omatic isn’t enough. Gromit has been tending a lovely cottage garden so Wallace gives him what every English garden needs: a gnome. This gnome, Norbot (Reece Shearsmith),  is an intelligent robot built to garden and take care of other home tasks. Once Norbot has taken care of his duties in the Wallace and Gromit household with time to spare, even though he does require re-charging. Wallace decides to offer him as a gardening service because “inventing doesn’t come cheap.” What could go wrong?

There are a few kinks (not the kinky kind because this is a G-rated film), and there will be a few close shaves, but Norbot is basically well-meaning. But don’t we all know someone who is too well-meaning?

Then there are others who aren’t well-meaning at all. Feathers McGraw has been lurking since “Wrong Trousers.” He had a cameo in the 2008, DreamWorks Animation collaboration with Aardman, the Oscar-winning “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.”  In the 2008 animated short  “A Matter of Loaf and Death,” we learned he has escaped from a wanted poster briefly seen in passing, and, in the 2023 “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” he’s seen briefly disguised as a chicken.

In “Vengeance Most Fowl,” Feathers McGraw is confined in “a high security institution” otherwise known as a zoo. Chief Inspector Albert Mackintosh (Peter Kay), who was a police constable in “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,”  is overseeing the new exhibition and security for the infamous blue diamond and the chief inspector now has a plucky young protégée, PC Mukherjee (Lauren Patel).

Feather’s McGraw is able to hack into Norbot while he is re-charging and change Norbot’s settings to “evil.” That gets Wallace into trouble and the beleaguered Wallace is hounded by an intrepid news reporter for Up North News, Onya Doorstep (Diane Morgan). Yet we all know that there will be a chase scene, and, eventually, Gromit will save Wallace.

This is a comfortable, cozy holiday offering and well-worth the time no matter how you feel about garden gnomes. So re-program your life from dull to pleasant and have a good time.

“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” was the closing film of AFI FEST (27 October 2024) and will be released one BBC One and BBC iPlayer on 25 December 2024 in the UK. It will become available on Netflix from 3 January 2025.