Pop Culture Happy Hour - Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is the latest film in the beloved stop-motion animation series. This time, clueless inventor Wallace and his long-suffering pooch Gromit are dealing with Wallace's latest invention, a robotic garden gnome. But when an old enemy gets involved, they must face down an army of evil robots and expose the criminal mastermind behind it all.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Wallace and Grumet, Vengeance Most Fowl, is the latest film in the beloved stop-motion animation series. It sees Clueless Inventor Wallace and his long-suffering Pooch Grumet, dealing with Wallace's latest invention, a robotic garden-known designed to make everyone's lives easier. But when an old enemy gets involved, Wallace and Gromit must face down an army of evil robots and expose the criminal mastermind behind it all. I'm Stephen Thompson. And I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about the Netflix movie, Wallace and Gromit, Vengeance Most Fowl on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

Joining us today is Regina Barber. She's a host and reporter for NPR Science Podcast shortwave. Hey, Regina. Hey, how's it going? It's going great. Also with us is entertainment journalist Christina Escobar. She's the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Latinamedia.com. Hey, Christina, welcome back.

Thanks for having me. Of course. Let's get to it. Vengeance Most Fowl is the second feature-length Wallace and Grommet film in the long-running series. There have also been four short films and several spin-offs, So you may know the setup already. Wallace is a kindly but dim inventor, and Grummet is his silent, but soulful

and extremely resourceful Beagle. Wallace is voiced by Ben Whitehead. Gromit is voiced by nobody. You might recall that in the 1993 Wallace and Gromit short the wrong trousers, we met Feathers McGrath, the sinister penguin who posed as a chicken, long story, never mind, and whose plans to steal the precious blue diamond

were foiled by Wallace and Gromit, but let's be honest, mostly by Gromit. In Vengeance Most Fowl, feathers his back and plotting his revenge, which he hopes to achieve by exploiting Wallace's latest invention, a robotic garden gnome named Norbert, who is voiced by Reese Shearsmith. This is my latest invention, a smart gnome. I'm your nifty, odd-jobbing robot. Call me Norbot.

Wallace and Gromit Vengeance Most Fowl was directed by series creator Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. It is streaming on Netflix now. Stephen, kick us off. What do you think? Well, for those who find... the Paddington movies a little too edgy, a little too dark. If you watched Paddington and had nightmares, might I suggest dipping into a film that I've found completely and utterly delightful. My relationship with the Ardman animation, Overe, your chickens run, your Wallace's and Grommet,

I've been pretty casual. I love chicken run. I've checked in here and there. I've seen at least one chicken run movie. I've certainly seen some Wallace and Grommet here and there. I have not been deeply invested in this series. So for me, I was really kind of coming in as a tourist. And I have to say, uh, it requires no advanced knowledge. You don't have to know any other films in the series. You don't have to really know Feathers McGrath's backstory. It's kind of implied. He's evil. This is an utterly frictionless, kind, funny, joyful, silly, silly, movie-going experience. I love the fact that this is the second feature-length Wallace and Gromit film.

This movie, without credits, is like 75 minutes long. Sure. It still felt so long. Oh, Regina. We'll get to it. I had a blast with this movie. And I think you can, you know, as frictionless and as joyful and as silly and sweet as this movie is, you can also read into it a little bit more commentary about artificial

intelligence, for example. What I'm saying is Wallace and Gromit, Vengeance Most Foul, ripped from the headlines. Searing commentary on modern life. I loved it. Okay. I think we're gleaning from context clues is what Regina thinks, but let's go to Christina first. What did you think of it? So I thought the movie was fun.

Super fun to watch. I thought actually I disagree, Regina. I thought the plot clipped along nicely that there were fun set pieces. I have been saying cheese, grommet cheese to my children since they were born. and they've had no idea what I've been talking about. And it was delightful to go back to West Wallaby Street. But I felt like this movie had no lesson, no commentary. Like, there was stuff about AI, but like, what did they have to say?

I don't know, pick a better password was like that the takeaway from the whole film? Like, I just, it was lovely. I guess I just expected a little bit more from a Wallace and Grommet joined. than like despicable me for it. To me, they had the same level of things to say, which is low. Oh, Christina. Yes, boy. Shots fire. It was nice.

Wow. I love it. I love it. Okay. Regina, hit us. So, Wallace and Groment was very formative in my childhood. Really, really loved it. Really loves the wrong childhood.

It was probably one of my favorite movies for like the longest time. It was 30-something minutes, right? And so, and I remember watching clips of it before. watching this. And I kind of agree with Christina. Like, it didn't have like a lot to say, but it felt like a little bit more deeper if this cartoon can be deeper. And like, why is Wallace still having money problems? And like, I was like my first question. Because his inventions aren't very good, Regina. They're not very good. He spends all his money on these like steampunk, Rube Goldberg creations that like butter is toast. He can't even make tea anymore.

Oh, yeah. More bills. Inventing doesn't come cheap, does it? Maybe I'm just making too many gadgets. I did think it was slow. I was like, when are we going to get to what's actually going to happen? Because I was used to the shorter films. Like, minute 47 is when I was into it.

Then I started to enjoy it. I just love that for Regina, this movie being like 75 minutes long, it's like the brutalist. It's the brutalist of stop motion animation. It's the longest thing ever. And I will say, I know how long this takes. You shouldn't have spent the... Tighten it up.

Tighten up. Get an editor. But I will say, I did not like the anti-robot propaganda that they put out there. I am pro-Robot and didn't like that message. Okay. All right. Mark your calendars, folks, because this happens very rarely. I am totally Team Steven.

What? Delight this movie from start to finish, Regina, with a big, gruevy gun in my face with a peach of a marvel of a movie. So many jokes, so many gags. And not one of those jokes is spinning off in its own direction, just a joke for jokes sake. Each joke we get is building out character, doing character work, building what we know, filling it out, surprising us. And, you know, I spend the first few minutes of any Ardman animation film, which is the studio that creator Nick Park works out of, just marveling at the technical accomplishment. I don't know if you all spend any time as kids with a camcorder and some Play-Doh

trying to make stop motion yourself. Yes. But if you did, yeah, you're just, I'm marveling at the craft of it, but then the execution, because the characterization of, say, Gromit, how are they conveying so much with so little movement?

And then a few minutes in, I just get sucked in because they're very good at what they do. And then it becomes almost invisible. You stop thinking about the fact that it's stop animation. But the reason I stopped thinking about it is because I think I've cracked it.

I'm that smug. I think, oh, I now know what they're doing with Gromit. It's all in the eye. That's the secret. That's the code. Gromit feels like a real person because they know how to manipulate his eyebrows. And then I think I know as much about stop motion animation as Nick Park. And then Feathers McGraw shows.

And Feathers McGraw people is a bowling pin. He is a beak and two completely expressionless. Two coal black tiny shark eye buttons. I love him. Yeah, he's so good. I love him. And he doesn't move, but he's the funniest most expressive. thing in the movie. How is that possible? It's like, it's a combination of

mime and puppetry. And he's such a clearly defined character. You feel so bad for him, actually, at times. Well, yeah. I think you're supposed, I think you're supposed to get some emotion out of him. But, Regina, I know the moment you're talking about, which is grommet, looking at the back of a swivel chair. And my husband will attest to this fact, I went like this. I made a little clappy, I made a little Because I knew what was coming. Yes. And when it happens, it paid off in such a big way.

When Feathers McGrath, even in the original movie in the wrong trousers, when he would turn around and like see you, right? You'd be caught. I'm giggling. Like, that's the best part. And I will say that one of the jokes that made me just, two jokes that made me laugh was Anya doorstep, the name of the reporter. And then the rebooting of the robots by throwing boots at their back. I thought I actually very much enjoyed that. Again, second half of the movie.

Regina. Okay, but inasmuch as this film can be about anything, and I personally like the fact that it really wasn't about anything. I think that's a relief. There is a vaguely ludite point, to your point, Regina. I mean, not that technology itself is evil, but that it can be easily exploited, used for evil. You can just hack into them.

But even that was handled with such a light touch. Yeah, I was such, I was totally down with it. I mean, I think about the restraint necessary, the very British restraint necessary. Like, imagine you are Nick Park, and this is your life's work, making stop motion animation, making these films at an extremely slow and deliberate, painstaking pace for years and years and years. What somebody like that must think of AI? Oh, that's a good point. And to have that mindset be deployed in such a gentle way requires so much more restraint than I possess.

And I don't know, like, many of these jokes are very. broad, right? Like, you referred to the rebooting. Like, that is just a very silly pun. Deployed in this kind of Rube Goldberg, Pee-Wee-Herman, steampunk invention, you know, concocted in the moment. It's so silly, but there's still such a light touch to it. And it would be so easy in lesser hands for this to be clunky and full of, I mean, somebody, was it Christina? Christina was the one who compared this to Despicable Me Four. Yeah. Like the level of deafness here compared to the so much broader kids entertainment.

Yeah. So what I want to say about that is like the animation here was beautiful. And I love it. And I loved watching it. And I loved watching with my kids and talking about like how they did it and the difference between this and say a despicable me for. But I will say over the holidays, my kids watched Despicable Me Four by themselves and came back up and we're trying to. explain what it was about to our relatives. And it was like, it's not about anything. You don't, don't worry about it. And I felt like I would say something similar about this movie,

because unlike in other Wallace and Grommets, where the central thing is their relationship, right? Friendship, what it means, what it doesn't mean. What is forgiveness like? All of those things. Those themes were so, so light in this one. There's the padding machine that he invents. That's obviously right, like too far. That's it, lad. My new patomatic will oblige. And if you think that's progress, wait till you see the next thing I'm working on. I was like, he's so neglected.

That's the note I wrote. Rommet is so neglected. Wallace has outsourced petting his dog to technology. Right, which is bad. Right? But then, oh, spoiler, by the end, he's learned that he should pet his own dog, right? He gets rid of that machine. You never expect that.

I'm so sorry about the spoiler. everybody. You never expect that he's going to learn a valuable lesson about petting his own dog. But I agree. Why? We never see him reacting to the gnomes like, oh, maybe they're bad, maybe they're good. It's just like he did it at the beginning and then he doesn't do it at the end. And I felt like there was a lot of adventure. There was like beautiful scenes on boats and super fun throwing of things and racing and running and amazing stuff that happened. But why did he change? I really couldn't tell you. I saw no light bulb go off. no nothing. There was a light bulb that went off. Yeah, but not about that. Not about that. About a plot point. And so that like lack of like emotional learning made the movie to me.

After I walked away, I was like, that was nice. I just don't think I'm going to watch it over and over again. Like I have the shorts and some of the other films. I think you're speaking to something that it occurred to me while I was watching this. I was watched this thinking this is a kid's movie or maybe I should say it's an all ages movie. And yet, it's great. It's funny. It's exciting. I think it doesn't feel the need to impart very heavy life lessons or heavy-handed because, you know, patting life lessons. And that's what I enjoyed about it.

It isn't concerned with telling kids that they're special and wondrous creatures. It just sets to work being funny. Not kid funny. Not kid funny with some spicy things for the adults. Just funny to everyone. Yeah, I will say even Kung Fu Panda does a really good job of like imparting a message. And I think you're right, not everything has to have a message, but when you do have impressionable kids, you know, sometimes it's nice. And sometimes it's nice to feel like you're being talked to and being included.

And I like Kung Fu Panda. I don't think movies have to have a message, but I do think they have to be about something. And I would be hard pressed to tell you, like, I think the best movies ask questions. Even the best kids' movies don't necessarily impart a lesson. But have you walking away thinking about something? and I did not walk away thinking about anything other than this is stop motion animation. I think this movie has more to say about technology and AI than you're giving it credit for. Maybe.

Yeah, and as a non-parent, I'll say this is hilarious. But I think this still works on a kid level, even though kids need to see themselves all the time. Because I think I would imagine, you tell me if I'm wrong, I would imagine that a kid sees themselves identifying with Gromit. He's ignored. He's taken for granted. But he's the only one with a real sense of what's going on. All the adults like Wallace are just wrapped up in themselves. So this is making fun of the adult world.

And this is what I think this is a good way to make an all-ages movie that doesn't feature some precocious snod of a little kid who gets told life lessons. So this is a very rich text. Is there anything we haven't touched on yet? We've barely scratched the surface. The other thing I want to say is that they didn't eat cheese. Whereas one cheese mentioned. They mentioned cheese. They mentioned cheese.

but they gotta leave you wanting something for the sequel. Where was the cheese? Yeah, that I agree. I'm usually not saying you have to do fan service, but I was a little disappointed by the lack of cheese. All right, well, as you say, all movies ask questions, Christina. This one is where was the cheese? Where was the cheese?

Well, I think we've arranged ourselves along a spectrum. I think it's safe to say. So fill in the gap. Where do you fit on this spectrum? We want to know what you think about Wallace and Grummet, vengeance most foul. find us at Facebook.com slash PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show.

Christina Escobar, Regina Barber, Stephen Thompson. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And just a reminder that signing up for pop culture happy hour plus is a great way to support our show at public radio and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor free.

No more clicking ahead three minutes. Just listen to the whole thing. So please go find out more at plus.npr.npr.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Liz Metzker and Hufsafatma and edited by Mike Katzif. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy. And hello, come in, provides our theme music.

Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all tomorrow.