Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is a rare twist for the venerable British animated series, in so much that, unlike past entries that have largely involved introducing new supporting characters and wholly distinct stories, it’s the first that really engages with Wallace & Gromit‘s textual past. Beyond the re-introduction of Wrong Trousers‘ Feathers McGraw, the film is, sometimes to its detriment, in echoed conversation with what’s come before it—which means when it comes to its climactic chase sequence, you can’t help but draw what might be an unenviable comparison between the new film and what’s come before.
Especially because what’s come before is arguably one of the greatest chase sequences ever committed to screens, small or otherwise. The Wrong Trousers‘ final chase—in which Wallace and Gromit pursue Feathers and the diamond the nefarious penguin/chicken/criminal mastermind has stolen over a model train system the main duo built around their house to ferry mail and other things around—is a master class in economical action and comedy that is still beloved over 30 years after it first broadcast. The score, the cinematography, the sense of speed, the willingness to accept the absurdity of it all because both the characters and the film are all thoroughly committed to the bit, the technical marvel of animating all this with stop motion model techniques: it is simply perfect, and timeless in both its grand, yet intimate sense of scale and its mastery of the craft.
So when Vengeance Most Fowl, like all good Wallace & Gromit stories do, ends with a chase—and it’s a chase between Wallace, Gromit, and Feathers McGraw—you’re already setting yourself up for a losing prospect. Arguably no matter what directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham had up their clay-covered sleeves for Vengeance was never going to be able to match up to what come before. Too similar, and like some elements of the film already, it becomes more of an echo of past glories rather than something that stands on its own. Too different—perhaps, fearfully, too big, too enamored with spectacle and the idea of quantity over quality—and it ventures into the prospect of still coming off as second fiddle to a masterful chase sequence, no matter how good it is.
It’s for the best then that Vengeance Most Fowl‘s climax has its cake and eats it. The film builds to one final chase as Feathers—having turned Wallace’s latest invention, an army of smart “Norbot” garden gnomes, against him and detained both master, pooch, and the original Norbot—makes his escape with the legendary Blue Diamond he’d attempted to swipe all those years ago, beginning a final action setpiece that sees Wallace, Gromit, and Norbot give chase first by car (well, by office desk chair tailing a car), and then by canal boat. Already, there’s fun parallels to The Wrong Trousers here: both chases start similarly, even with similar conversations as Wallace and Feathers confront each other. There’s the contrast between an absurdly high-speed train chase and the achingly slow canal boats. Where Wrong Trousers relishes in the briskness of its chase, Vengeance Most Fowl luxuriates (the full sequence is around eight minutes to the final faceoff, compared to Wrong Trousers‘ clocks in at under three minutes). The former is a largely dialogue-less scene (leaning on Julian Nott’s sublime soundtrack to set that breezy pace), save for Wallace’s occasional interjections, while the latter’s is much chattier and jokier.
And yes, it is bigger. There’s setpieces within the setpiece, jokes within jokes. Vengeance Most Fowl‘s chase has the space and breadth to give rise and fall to its pacing, it has a chance to breathe compared to Wrong Trousers‘ blistering pace in turn. But within that larger scope, Vengeance Most Fowl‘s chase sequence gets to add something beyond that “bigger is better” growth: a genuine emotional heart that Wrong Trousers‘ chase just doesn’t have the time to ruminate on. The Wrong Trousers chase is pure action: Wallace and Gromit have to stop Feathers, so they give chase and stop him. Vengeance Most Fowl‘s chase has to prepare for a climatic resolution to the emotional dissonance that’s grown between the duo throughout the rest of the movie, as Wallace’s fixation on inventing has left Gromit feeling distanced from his best friend.
It does so, in part, through gags—Gromit acquiesces to Wallace’s love of inventing so he can Macgyver up an impromptu boot-ballista he uses to disable Feathers’ Norbot army halfway through, and the pursuant police officers tailing both parties are temporarily waylaid by Feathers quick-changing into a handy nun’s habit as a disguise (“that’s just an innocent nun, out for a pleasure cruise,” utters Peter Kay’s PC Mackintosh, a perfect line of dialogue). But it also becomes a moment where Wallace and Gromit alike realize how much they still really care for each other, and how far each of them are willing to go to make sure the other is safe, even more than stopping Feathers from framing them both. This all pays off in the final moments, when Wallace is willing to let himself take the blame for Feathers’ crimes if it means saving Gromit from impending doom, but that moment of emotional catharsis is underpinned throughout the whole chase sequence before it.
It’s this additive layer that makes Vengeance Most Fowl‘s climax click, and sit alongside Wrong Trousers‘ all-timer one in turn. For a film that occasionally struggles in its desire to mirror and be in conversation with Wallace & Gromit‘s past, it’s a moment that makes a clear case for the strength it finds in building on the greatness that came before.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is now streaming on Netflix.
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