Nick Park, the filmmaker behind the successful Wallace and Gromit shorts, finally delivers his stop-action feature film debut, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, on the heels of Tim Burton’s own stop-action feature, Corpse Bride. Park delivers a cute and lighthearted film concerning gentle inventor Wallace and his silent and ever-wise dog Gromit, as they try to stop a rampaging Were-Rabbit (who was zapped by a machine Wallace invented) from destroying the town’s vegetable harvest. This film got heaps of praise from critics and filmgoers alike for its awesome technical achievements and the painstaking craft involved in bringing the story to life, but even though those achievements elevate the film to loftier heights than, say, Shrek 2 or Ice Age (or the countless CG/Animation films cropping up in recent years), there’s simply not enough story to sustain its running time and by the climax my engagement with the material is diminished somewhat. That is not to say that the film doesn’t have its high points: the animation is first rate, succeeding in topping the original shorts, and the creative and all encompassing mise-en-scene, with the high quality cinematography, allows the audience to easily accept the fictional world the characters inhabit. Even though most of the humor is geared for children, there are several throwaway comments and slight visual gags to keep the adults interested to a degree, but as the film progressed I found myself constantly scanning the screen for less sight gags and more story.
Richard Saad
© Cinephile Magazine, 2006