Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
★★★ — Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
Wallace and Gromit need little introduction to British audiences. The clay-animated duo, dreamed up by Nick Park at the National Film and Television School in the mid-1980s, became one of the most beloved partnerships in the history of animation, their short films earning a string of BAFTA and Academy Award wins and their 2005 feature The Curse of the Were-Rabbit cementing their place in the cultural furniture. Vengeance Most Fowl arrives in 2024 as their first substantial new outing in some years, a feature-length special running 79 minutes and produced, as ever, by Aardman Animations, the Bristol studio that has made stop-motion its signature. The film's tagline, "New friends. Old enemies," signals a self-aware awareness of its own nostalgia pull, leaning into the villain who made the original The Wrong Trousers (1993) such a tightly wound little thriller: the silent, diamond-obsessed penguin Feathers McGraw. The premise here places Wallace's increasingly automated domestic life at the centre of the story, with a "smart" garden gnome standing in for the broader anxieties around technology dependency that are, it is fair to say, very much in the cultural air. It is the kind of family film that is aiming at something, even if the question of whether it lands is the whole point of reviewing it.
The film is co-directed by Nick Park, who has shaped the Wallace and Gromit world since its inception, and Merlin Crossingham, who has been a key creative figure at Aardman for many years. Aardman's productions are not cheap to make by the standards of stop-motion, and the studio's output has always carried a handmade quality that sets it apart from the smoother contours of CGI family films (compare it to something like Trolls, another family film reviewed here, and the philosophical distance between the two approaches is immediately obvious). Every frame of an Aardman production involves physical sets, physical models, and frame-by-frame adjustments of malleable figures, which gives the work a warmth and texture that no amount of rendering budget can quite replicate. The script comes from Park and Vengeance Most Fowl regular collaborator Mark Burton, and it carries the structural DNA of the classic shorts, with Wallace's inventions forming the engine of the plot rather than mere background decoration.
The voice cast has shifted somewhat over the years, as it inevitably does with long-running properties. Ben Whitehead steps into the role of Wallace, a part originated by the late Peter Sallis, and brings a familiar warmth to the character's bumbling enthusiasm. Peter Kay, a comedian with deep roots in northern English comic tradition, joins the cast alongside Reece Shearsmith (known for his work in darker, more offbeat British comedy), Lauren Patel, and Diane Morgan, whose dry, deadpan delivery is one of the more distinctive comedic voices in British television and film at the moment. Gromit, of course, says nothing at all, communicating entirely through eyebrow movement and posture, a performance achieved through the animators' hands rather than any actor's voice. That particular creative constraint has always been one of the franchise's quiet strengths, though whether it remains so here is something the review below addresses directly. For another recent 2020s release that shows just how varied the decade's output has been across world cinema, it is worth checking out the site's coverage of Moshari and Tiger Stripes, both very different in register but each finding their own kind of expressive economy.
Vengeance Most Foul (2024) marks Wallace & Gromit's long-awaited return, and while it's undeniably slick, meticulously animated, and packed with Aardman's signature tactile charm, it also highlights why sometimes less really is more. The film brings back the beloved villain Feathers McGraw for a heist involving a priceless diamond, but his screen time feels disappointingly brief, overshadowed by a swarm of chatty garden gnomes who chatter incessantly and dilute the duo's quiet chemistry. What once felt cozy now feels cluttered. The animation itself remains impeccable, every woolly texture, every expressive glance from Gromit, every Rube Goldberg contraption is lovingly crafted. And there are genuine laughs. But the magic of early Wallace & Gromit lay in their simplicity: two characters, one problem, zero filler. Here, the plot meanders, the gags feel busier than funnier, and the emotional core gets lost in the noise. Watching it with a young child only underscored the pacing issues, when even a kid starts fidgeting, you know something's off. A competent, visually polished outing that proves Aardman hasn't lost its craft. But charm isn't about budget or scale, it's about heart, silence, and space to breathe. This one tries too hard to entertain and forgets that Wallace & Gromit were always at their best when they were just… together.
That point about silence and space is one I keep coming back to. The original shorts worked so well in part because they trusted the audience, and trusted Gromit, to carry scenes without filling every gap with noise or incident. For me, watching this one, there was a real sense of something being crowded out, of the film being anxious about losing your attention when the truth is that the attention was always there, waiting. Aardman's craft remains genuinely impressive, and I would not want to put anyone off seeing it, particularly with younger viewers who will almost certainly find plenty to enjoy in the visual invention on screen. But if you want a reminder of what this partnership looks like when it is given room to breathe, do yourself a favour and go back to the shorts. Sometimes the best thing a sequel can do is send you back to the beginning.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2024 | Watched: 2026-03-20
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Netflix · Netflix Kids · Netflix Standard with Ads
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Netflix · Netflix Standard with Ads
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Nick Park: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) · A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008) · A Grand Day Out (1989) · A Close Shave (1995)
More from United Kingdom: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) · Blue (1993)
More from the 2020s: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · The Long Walk (2025) · Americana (2023)
More family: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Wonder (2017) · Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anastasia (1997)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
