Customer Reviews

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

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When else have I ever been able to write a review where both the words "clever" and "adorable" fit together?

From my perspective as a parent: I just took three boys, ages 3, 7 and 8, to see Wallace and Grommit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. They all had a great time with it, laughed often and were completely absorbed by the story. There was not one scary or inappropriate thing in this movie for kids. Thumbs up!

From my perspective as an adult: Hilarious, clever, silly, and somehow adorable all at once, just what one would expect from a W&G film but even better, if that's possible. If you haven't been introduced to Nick Park's creations Wallace and Grommit (an uber-inventor and window washer by trade, with his all-too-human dog) before, I urge you to look up the other short movies on Dvd as soon as possible and spend the next few evenings with them. I promise you that you will be surprised and delighted with the quirky Aardman universe, the sly parodies of cinematic clichés, and the perfect attention to little details that went into creating the claymation sets and figures. This is surely the pinnacle of its art form, and a lot of fun for "kids of all ages" to boot.

This new movie, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, continues in the world of W&G, but with a new twist; the pair are now in the business of pest control with the very unique humane policy; they cannot dispose of the marauding garden pests that they capture in the usual manner because Wallace is too soft-hearted, so instead they keep them in cages at their home. Of course this has become a growing problem since the business took off and has been very brisk lately...until Wallace hatches an ingenious plan to change the very nature of rabbitiness, from ravenous vegetable-munchers into...well, we aren't entirely sure. It would seem that something went awry with the latest mind control gadget. Now, there's some kind of giant rabbit monster on the loose and naturally the town is desperate to protect their prize-winning vegetables for the annual Harvest Faire. Can Grommit solve the mystery of the monster's true nature before somebody decides to exact some not-so-humane pest control?

Without a doubt, I am going to rush out and buy this one as soon as it's released on Dvd in order to complete my Nick Park collection.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle

Wallace and Gromit and their creator Nick Park need no introduction. With their three shorts 'A grand day out', "The wrong trousers" and "A close shave' they've won hearts of everyone around the globe. With all three films winning countless awards, including 2 oscars, and accolades worldwide, Wallace & Gromit has become a global phenomenon. Not to mention here the rare distinction Nick Park enjoys of being the only animator ever whose 2 films("Creature Comforts" and "A grand day out") were nominated in the same category, same year(1991) for the best short film oscar, so he could take home only one for his groundbreaking masterpiece "Creature Comforts'. With his exceptional talent in the painstaking art of claymation, Nick Park has taken stop motion to newer heights with "Creature Comforts', "Wallace & Gromit' and his first feature film "Chicken Run".

"Wallace & Gromit:Curse of the wererabbit" is the highly anticipated first full length feature involving Wallace and his brainy canine companion Gromit. Its a dream come true for all the fans around the world who have been expecting their favourite characters on silver screen for a long time.

In "Curse of the wererabbit", a vegetable guzzling "monster' is on the verge of spoiling the giant vegetable competition organised by Lady Tottington and only wallace and gromit can save the day now. Nick Park has remained faithful to the characterisations and followed the same trend which w&g is known for. New adventure, few more amazing inventions, more new characters, new circumstances, more suspense but same old British flavour, feel and charm...W&G first feature is surely a winner. Those familiar with "King Kong", "Jaws" and other Hitchcock films will enjoy the spoof and occasional references more!

Wallace & Gromit dvd is loaded with these extra features:

1. English & French DD5.1 Surround
2. English & Spanish DD2.0 Stereo
3. English SDH, English, French and Spanish subtitles
4. Cracking Commentary - Audio commentary with director/writer Steve Box and director/writer Nick Park
5. Deleted Scenes with optional commentary
6. How Wallace & Gromit Went To Hollywood - Learn how Wallace & Gromit grew from the imagination of Nick Park and became Academy Award winning stars.
7. Behind the Scenes of 'The Curse of the Were-Rabbit' - Enjoy a rare look into how these lovable characters were brought to life.
8. A Day in the Life at Aardman - Experience a day of production at the famed Aardman Studios as seen through the eyes of a crewperson.
9. How to Build a Bunny - A unique look at how the clay bunny models were assembled using time-lapse photos.
10. Stage Fright - View this award-winning short film with an insightful commentary by its creator, Steve Box.
11. The Family Album - Colourful production stills of the elaborate sets and meticulous character development.
12. Dreamworks Kids - A variety of fun-filled, engaging interactive games and creative activities.

A great disc indeed, with all these awesome extras, including the commentary track by the legendary Nick Park!!

In the time of CGI and computer graphics, With "Curse of the wererabbit", Nick Park has proved once again that audience respond to things made with heart and soul. This is where Nick Park's clay models and Hayao Miyazaki's hand drawn animation scores way over CGI. "Wallace & Gromit:Curse of the wererabbit" is undoubtedly one of the most heartfelt and charming films ever made.

Thank you Nick park for your wonderful and ever inspiring work. We love your films and honour you as an artist. Your everlasting impressions can be seen not just on your lovable clay models but on our hearts too.

Wallace and gromit:curse of the wererabbit" is claymation at its very best. Highly recommended alongwith the other three wallace and gromit shorts.

EVERYTHING ON DVD including the deleted scenes, "Stage Fright", "How to Build a Bunny", interviews with Nick Park/Steve Box, and the Aardman documentary....ALL of the special features (the movie itself, too) are CLOSED-CAPTIONED! WOW!

Park and Box's commentaries appear as subtitles while the movie runs with Closed-Captions. I suggest watching movie again with captions turned off on your TV set to follow the subtitled commentaries. (because captions overlap subtitles, y'know)

Sooooo pleased with this DVD as many DVDs don't caption their special features.

THANKS DREAMWORKS and AARDMAN (and whoever else) for caring to caption everything!

From a Deaf family and the Deaf/HOH community, and a Wallace & Gromit Nut.

...and tumble, and turn, and suspend in mid-air like a lithe feather? I stared in awe at this, wondering how they could have possibly done that. Imagine the camerawork involved. It's possible they could have simply plugged an image into a computer and manipulated it with their CGI programs, but I choose to remain blissfully ignorant of the whole process. For once I'm so enamored that I don't want to know how they did it.

When you get the DVD, which you will because it is that brilliant, you have to pause it at some point and look at a character's face up-close. What are you looking for? Fingerprints. The fingerprints of the claymation artists who move the figurines one frame at a time. These people deserve medals for bravery, or patience, or madness. Heck all three!

I have to confess at this point that I'm a Wallace & Gromit poser; but I do know what a gromit is because I work on my own cars, you have to give me that. I've never seen anything else with Wallace & Gromit except "Curse of the Were-Rabbit." Lord help me, I love them both. It's such a good-natured, joyful little film, and it will satisfy you on just about every level you can think of. You will be entertained, you will laugh, you will feel pathos, you will care about the characters, and you will find some kind of itching deep down where you might wonder about your own world. Ah ha! What a good movie should do!

The plot is thus; Wallace and his trusty sidekick dog Gromit are independent pest removers (read; rabbits), who go about the town removing the little bushy-tailed pests from the gardens of the neighborhood. Business is good; the annual Vegetable Show is coming up, and everyone wants to be prepared. One night, a huge Were-Rabbit thunders through town, uproots everyones' gardens, and Wallace & Gromit catch heat because they weren't around to stop it.

In the meantime, Lady Tottington's grounds have been overrun with rabbits as well, suddenly. She hires Wallace and Gromit to come remove them, but not before encountering Victor Quartermaine, whose solution to the problem is to shoot them all one by one. Wallace's approach is capture and relocation, a much more humane strategy. Quartermaine turns his nose up at the idea, and so would only the hardest-hearted person in the audience.

Now just wait a minute. Where are the explosions? Where is the altruistic message? Where is the protagonist with an agonizing past? Where is the sexy heroine who gives it her all? Where are the multi-billion dollar effects that blow you out of your seat? Where are the Yen Wo Ping choreographed fights? Where oh where are the beautiful actors and actresses to strut about the screen flashing their beauty at us from such lofty heights?

You get the idea. You get none of that. In fact, you'll be amazed at how much fun you can have when your senses aren't being bombarded at every moment with some ideal form of beauty, some super-violent fist-fight, or some hair-brained CGI effect that takes up the entire shot.

And you'll also be amazed at how easily it all puts a smile on your face. You see, I think this movie is so magnificent, so touching, so simple and refreshing, that if you don't come away from it feeling light-hearted and hopeful, then you truly are a Morlock. Go hang with Victor Quartermaine.

I saw the film in theaters and was somewhat disappointed but seeing it a second time, the film is funnier, brighter, and more entertaining. A wonderful film for all ages, although I note that there are a couple bits of surprisingly frank sexual innuendo. Maybe it's just the Brits and a looser sense of humor...

As for the DVD, I would like to point out as clearly as possible -- THERE IS A COMMENTARY BY NICK PARK AND STEVE BOX! Universal, for some reason, neglects to mention commentary in their press releases. It's annoying. But I work at Blockbuster, and we have the DVD early, and it's in my computer this very moment and there is a full-length audio commentary by the two directors on the feature film. Hooray, hooray, hooray!

It's tough to fathom a G-rated animated film garnering so much world attention, but there you go. Wallace and Gromit have captured ...something ....in our collective imaginations. Perhaps it's a harkening back to simpler times. Perhaps it's the witticism. Perhaps it's the originality of "claymation" (clay characters shot one painstaking frame after the next). But whatever it is, it works.

Not having seen any previous works by Steve Box and Nick Park (directors), I have no comparisons to draw from with regards to their earlier award-winning claymation movies (A CLOSE SHAVE, 2001). But I can say, without hesitation, that this is a very good film for a couple of reasons.

First was the story. There's never been a "vegetarian" monster before, but now we have one with "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." This giant fluffy bunny has the strength of ten men and ten-times the appetite, too. Gardens are being destroyed and it's only days before the Giant Vegetable Competition. Wallace and Gromit, founders of the "Anti-Pesto" pest control agency (and they drive a green van, which is just too funny, too, if you know what Pesto looks like), have their hands full. They're basement is already maxed out with rabbits they've caught (they don't kill them, but are humane and take care of their pests). And now this Were-Rabbit problem. What to do?

Second was the character voices. Peter Sallis, British-born stage actor, reprises his role as Wallace, the good-hearted pest control agent with great gadgetry. Gromit the dog, of course, is his trusty mute sidekick who saves Wallace constantly but receives no praise for his work. Helena Bonham Carter plays the voice of Lady Tottington, the love interest of Wallace and the wicked Victor Quartermaine (Hmm, where have I heard that name before?) voiced excellently by Ralph Fiennes. Victor wants to shoot every possible threat and now that the Were Rabbit has been spotted, it appears he may very well get his chance. But killing the Were Rabbit may have consequences that go far beyond simple Bunny Homicide.

Third was the way the film was shot. Watching how fluidly the claymation proceeded was astounding. Never once was there the "herky-jerky" motions most of us remember when using this kind of animation. Remember Gumby? This was light years beyond him.

Fourth were the extras. There were lots of tidbits about how claymation works and the success of Wallace and Gromit (and those that have been successful thanks to them, like various cheeses). But the thing that grabbed me the most was the inclusion of an award-winning short film called STAGE FRIGHT. The lighting, homage to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and wonderful special effects made this an eye-popping piece of film making.

This is a really good film for parents and children alike. The kids will get a kick out of Gromit's facial expressions and the cool antics pulled off by all the characters, and parents will get a nice trip down memory lane, remembering when times were simpler.

Stop-motion animation is an incredibly laborious process to make a film. Essentially you have models and you pose them, take a picture, move them and take your hand away, take a picture repeat for a long time(this movie took 5 years). Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride all used this as well as the Wallace and Gromit shorts. Now we got the full length feature and it's just as delightful for kiddies and clever for adults with some cutesyness too.

Wallace and his silent puppy Gromit are in the rabbit catching business, saving the world from hungry bunnies. So they're on heightened alert when the Annual Vegetable Contest is being held. Only one night it so happens that something goes ransacking everyone's favorite vegetables and our duo is accused of not doing their job. So their on the case to discover the culprit and bring him in, as well as avoiding Victor Quartermaine who has some brutal ideas for dealing with the culprit.

It's quite surprising how fast we actually care about the story. With films about heartbreak, loss and death, the idea that we care about people's vegetables is quite something. Wallace is not that naive and dumb but there's a certain innocence to him and of course Gromit is the quick thinker only he can't actually talk. And a future friend(not spoiling it) is very cute and can't help but like the non-sensical thing.

Now this is stop motion so it's not as finessed as a Pixar movie but the animation is still quite something. Particularly when you know how the process is done and then see a scene in the film, you're like "wow, that must've been crazy to shoot". If you can actually look closely, you can even see what looks like thumbprints on the models but hey, this isn't polished, it's a movie and a good one too.

One thing that is nice to see is that the cast is not really that known, except for a few. Unlike let's say films like Robots or Shark Tale where they cram it with as much star power as possible, they hire actors that actually fall into their roles rather than us playing guess the actor. Peter Sallis is perfect as Wallace, playing that lovable but a bit slow type while Helena Bonham Carter is perfect as Lady Tottington and Ralph Fiennes you can tell is having loads of fun as Victor.

If the endless pop-culture and lame puns from recent animated fare have been bugging you, it's a good idea to check out Were-Rabbit: smart, funny and for once, refreshing.

If you are looking for a family friendly film that will amuse both toddler and adult, you need look no further than Nick Parks' latest clay animation entry "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit starring Wallace and Gromit." For the uninitiated, Wallace (the voice of Peter Sallis) is a sweet-natured and eccentric, cheese-loving inventor of Rube Goldberg contraptions of dubious merit and Gromit is his silent, trusty canine who functions more as a side-kick than a pet. When we first join them, the intrepid duo are running the cottage business of "Anti-Pesto," a neighborhood varmint removal service, specializing in the humane disposal of pesky vegetable-consuming rabbits. The annual Vegetable Competition is just around the corner and Anti-Pesto's clients are panic-stricken that their potential prize-winning beauties are at risk.

When summoned by Lady Tottington (the voice of Helena Bonham Carter), the hostess of the annual competition, to her ancestral home to humanely handle her rabbit infestation problem ("It is after all in their bunny natures"), Wallace is both flattered and dazzled. Employing his patented Bun-Vac 6000, Wallace basically Hoovers the rabbits up into a glass containment chamber where the bunnies are suspended floating in a delightful mid-air freefall. By earning the gratitude of Lady Tottington, Wallace incurs the jealous wrath of Victor Quartermaine. Ralph Fiennes oozes wonderfully smarmy disdain as the voice of the upper-class twit, Quartermaine, the trigger-happy rival for the attentions of Lady Tottington.

The film spoofs the 1930's Universal horror films with a "science gone horribly wrong" theme, when Wallace attempts to reprogram the rabbits using "the Mind-manipulation-o-matic," a choice which has consequences. What follows are moonlight transformations and a campy Frankenstein's monster send-up of angry farmers with pitchforks and torches.

The look of this low-key English charmer is really quite detailed and beautiful, and there are many wonderfully droll touches throughout (such as a laser-eyed garden gnome security system). You need not have seen any of Nick Park's previous film shorts to fully enjoy this latest entry, but if you have - then you are more than likely part of his fan base. Highly recommended. "The Curse..." is cracking good fun.

First, for the fans: this is not going to disappoint those who fell in love with the off-kilter humor and brilliant animation of the original three short films in the Wallace and Gromit series. It is every bit as clever and inventive, does not pander to its audience, does not lose anything in coming to the big screen. Far from it, this is the best of the bunch, that starts off well and continues to build comedic momentum as the story continues. The grand scale of widescreen 35mm film allows the animators to push their inventiveness to new heights: the world they create seems every bit as detailed and real (even though obviously its own kind of real) -- maybe even more so -- as almost any "live action" film I have seen.

Second, for the rest of you who have never heard of Wallace & Gromit, or who find uninteresting the idea of a daft middle class Brit who is, inexplicably, a remarkable inventor, and his even more clever but silent dog, you will still find yourself rolling in the aisles and smiling in spite of yourself at the wonderfully witty humor and the clever satire, and silly innuendoes of this film. For overall enjoyment, this film can be compared with Shrek -- though I found myself laughing even harder and smiling even wider at this one. Remarkably, though they are made of clay, the characters in this film seem to exhibit more character than the CGI animated creatures of Shrek (and certainly more feeling than most of the films you'll see at the local multiplex anyhow). My wife, who was not very interested in seeing this film - and had only seen parts of "The Wrong Trousers" -- and had to be dragged along with me and my children ages 5 to 9, was laughing as loud or louder than anyone else in the theater and absolutely loved it.

Gromit is the star of the show, and it is really fantastic the way in which the filmmakers are able to convey so much feeling on just his canine face without any dialogue. Beyond that, the film manages simultaneously to be a novel and underivative but very funny story in its own right, while also making loads of sly and silly references to classic horror and film noir, and containing jokes that work at a number of levels (for parents and for their children). This is one film that I won't mind watching with my children many times.

The animals are charming, the characters are... well, characters, and the plot is comical. There was nothing in the film that made me laugh out loud - but there are very clever scenes that made me smile and think to myself, "that's clever!" As the owner of a rabbit, I was tickled to see the film, as there aren't many bunny characters out there... but I must say, there were no behaviors of the bunnies that made me think they studied rabbits at length before rendering them. Wallace & Gromit have a humane pest control company, called Anti-Pesto. They use clamps around rabbits' necks to retrieve them. I know this is 'just' an animated film, but this is not a humane way in which to handle a rabbit. Children should be given the notion that rabbits can be picked up in this manner any more than you should pick up a child by the neck. I do like the cute way in which the bunnies are rendered, nonetheless.

The story, as all Wallace & Gromit stories, revolves around Wallace's inventions and Gromit's superior intelligence. The townspeople are anxiously awaiting the annual Giant Vegetable Competition, which has been held at Tottington Hall for over 500 years. Even Gromit is in the competition, raising a prize watermelon he caresses and covers with a blanket at night. The competitors have hired Anti-Pesto to humanely eliminate their rabbit problems, as the rabbits quickly ravish their small victory gardens.

Thanks to one of Wallace's haywire inventions, he unintentionally creates a monster, but doesn't even realize it. Just like Wallace's odd romance with cheese, the townsfolk have an obsession with vegetables bordering on obsessive compulsive disorder. The were rabbit wreaks havok all over town and threatens a tradition that is 5 centuries in the making. The reactions of the citizens are reminiscent of the Lon Chaney, Jr. and Boris Karloff movies of the 30's. Waving of pitchforks hither and yon.

Children will enjoy the sweet animals and adults will appreciate the subtle tongue-in-cheek humor.