Two Friends, Our Friends

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I cancelled Netflix in 2011 when they split their dvd and streaming services. I’m still angry about it. And I only get angrier when movies I desperately want to see get locked behind their shiny red walls. But paying N. money doesn’t feel like it would assuage my anger towards them and so I do not rejoin. All of which is to say: When they do actually put something into theaters, I do what I can to jump through that tiny window. Then, at least, some of my money goes to a local theater. When there is one. I managed to see perhaps my favorite Coen Brothers film in a tiny Netflixian theatrical release, but that theater—like every commercial theater in downtown Berkeley—is now gone.

I missed the Chicken Run sequel last year[1] so learning in the nick of time that Wallace & Gromit were returning to feature-length demanded I move whatever needed to be moved so the family could see their movie—in a theater I’d been near dozens of times but never before stepped inside. And I am so glad we did! I had to wait until December 19, but I have finally seen the best movie of 2024.

An easy way to start this paean is by comparing it to other movies. Tom Cruise can handle the comparison, don’t you think? So let’s start there, with his most recent Mission: Impossible. Don’t get me wrong—that was an intensely entertaining movie. Besides the terrific action sequences and great characters, it dug into the classic comedy toolbox. They dropped a piano. And they looked to the greatest of all: Buster Keaton. The dialogue did engage in technobabble that twice made me laugh out loud, right there in the theater, but I had a great time. I’ll go to the sequel.

But it’s no Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Which has drops just as death-defying:

Gromit may or may not out–Tom Cruise Tom Cruise at the film’s climax (your mileage may vary) but the film certainly knows that its AI nightmare is pretty silly. I’m not sure Mission: Impossible can ever admit that.

But let’s come back to that other direction Tom Cruise looked in making M:I:7: the silents. I won’t be the seventieth person to say that Gromit is the greatest silent actor in fifty years, but friends—let’s not sleep on Feather’s McGraw—

—the penguin with the face stonier than Buster’s. He is both the most terrifying villain of 2024 and a source of constant laughs. This is the perfectly balanced villain four-quadrant crowdpleasers must seek—and I’ll admit I haven’t seen Red One or the new Sonic or Mufasa or If—but I’ve yet to hear an argument that anyone in those films can chill your blood and make you guffaw at the same pace as this antarctic master of disguise.

But I suppose great art is supposed to have Important Things to Say about the Issues of the Day, etc etc, so let me note that in addition to making some salient points about AI (eg, it’s actually quite dumb, you shouldn’t add evil as an option, be careful who gets control of fresh tech…), Vengeance Most Fowl also makes intelligent and witty nods at concerns about cops and certain people’s border anxieties.

But the film is not forcing a point of view on you. No, friends, the team at Aardman has too much respect for you to do that. In fact, I saw someone say their only complaint about the film was its pro-police propaganda to which all I can say is: “Did we watch the same movie?”

Great art offers you as much respect as it demands for itself.

Anyway. Where were we?

Another lesson bigger blockbusters could take from Wallace & Gromit is how to offer fan service without locking out potential new audiences. We’ve all sat through plot-dragging scenes that let us see the clever poster on the wall or to allow a passing character to offer an old catchphrase, but Vengeance Most Fowl gives you favorite townsfolk from Curse of the Were-Rabbit without placing neon arrows around their heads. A character from Shaun the Sheep even gets a cameo, but it’s a great bit of slapstick even if you’ve never seen a sheep in your life.

And the Wallace & Gromit films continue to reward fans of films outside themselves. No one dutchangles like these films dutchangle, and although Were-Rabbit was a “horror movie,” nothing in that film is as genuinely scary as the gnomes gone bad we meet here. And if you’re primed with film knowledge, your subconscious is going to see camera and lighting choices to trigger you afresh.

Luckily, the scary references Feathers brings over from prison movies and Bond villainy are mostly played for laughs. My seven-year-old[2] never ran from the theater or covered her eyes—a huge accomplishment on her part due to a huge accomplishment on Aardman’s part.[3]

I want to shout out a particularly beautiful moment before I give my final accolades:

Gromit is the hero of these movies, full stop. No question. Wallace is a loveable dolt who barely manages not to get too much in Gromit’s way. But in this film, at a moment of crisis, Wallace’s peculiar interests and weird skillsets help save the day. There comes a moment in this film where Gromit hands the football to Wallace and lets him make the first down[4]—before Gromit finishes the day-saving. And while this film makes the best use of banana peels in recent memory[5], in the end, it’s just a terrific story about two friends who get into trouble . . . then get out again.

And that’s the very best story of all.

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[1] Booo, Netflix.

[2] She’ll be eight by the time you read this, but seven, she will explain to you, is seven—even at an additional threehundredandsixtysomething days.

[3] Speaking of kids, I’ll mention that the snootiest of my teenagers thought the animation was too smooth now, the water too realistic; but there’s a hipster at every party. I’m still seeing fingerprints and that’s enough for me.

[4] Sorry for the American sports reference in a review of a Wallace & Gromit film—there’s probably a cheese-rolling equivalent.

[5] I was primed to appreciate thanks to a recent minidoc by a fellow I first learned about via BW/DR.