How ‘Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’ Combines Comedy, Heart and a Light Commentary on Our ‘Love Affair With Technology’

variety.com:

Carolyn Giardina Academy Award nominated animated feature “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” marks the latest adventure from Aardman’s beloved inventor and loyal pooch, who first appeared in Oscar nominated 1991 short “A Grand Day Out.” The globally known duo have also appeared in a string of stories including Oscar winning shorts “A Close Shave” and “The Wrong Trouser” and feature “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” and also has been the focus of impactful initiatives such as Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal children’s charity, which has raised more than $25 million since it’s formation.

The characters’ soft-spoken four-time Oscar winning creator Nick Park, who directed this latest adventure with Aardman vet Merlin Crossingham, humbly admits he has to pitch himself when he reflects on the journey. “I think their relationship resonates to many people on different levels, whether it’s people who have dogs and talk to their dogs like they’re a human, or people working in a partnership together, where there’s a sort of a healthy little love, hate, friction, and all and everything in between. “The relationship between them – the comedy, the tension as well – [stems from] Wallace, the hapless, insensitive, cheese loving inventor, but his dog [a Chaplin-esque non-speaking character] being the sensitive one, the more human one, with all the nuanced human expressions,” he continues. “Vengeance Most Fowl” introduces Wallace’s latest invention, a smart gnome named Norbot, and marks the return of the franchise’s most infamous villain, the penguin Feathers McGraw, who first appeared in “The Wrong Trousers.” In the story, Feathers hacks Norbot, changing his program from Wallace’s smart garden assistant to Feathers’ evil henchman.