Director: Nick Park
Steve Box
Writers: Nick Park (Screenplay)
Steve Box (Screenplay)
Mark Burton (Screenplay)
Bob Baker ( Screenplay)
Runtime: 1hr 25 minutes
Plot: Wallace's cheese addiction seems to be taking control and he's gaining weight because of it, due to this he decides that brainwashing is the best way to go about it. Wallace & Gromit have founded a new company Anti-Pesto, who deal in humanely taking care of rabbit's that attack the local veggies. When Wallace decides to combine the idea of brainwashing and rabbits a monster is created.
The first and only feature length film from the duo and it's a busy place to be. I get why it's busy but I always felt like Wallace & Gromit work better as just the two of them (or with an optional Penguin added into the mix) but y'know, longer running time means you gotta add a bigger cast. A bigger cast can bring in quite a few perks and a fair amount of shit to a film and...sometimes the good can outweigh the bad like here, regardless of the fact that I don't like that there's a bigger cast, it works in this film's favour, unlike with some DC film where a cast of popular villains was just thrown together...I'm not here for another kick off about that piece of trash.
The good thing about this is it's strange yet plausible plot. Wallace hates vegetables and decides to brainwash himself into liking them. They run a company called Anti-Pesto which is a humane pest control company. They're running out of space so Wallace decides to kill two birds with one stone and brainwash the bunnies into hating veggies while testing out his brainwashing machine. Shit goes south pretty quickly and Wallace becomes a were-rabbit. What's a were-rabbit? From my gathering, it's like a werewolf but instead of the transformation happening on a full moon, it happens every night. Weird logic yes but...it works so we're not gonna question it. The only thing that can kill this creature is a 24 Carat Gold bullet...or a fall from a high building, whichever is more convenient for the plot really.
Another great thing is Wallace's cheese hiding places. That already sounds weird so I'll elaborate, Wallace has hidden cheese in his home in almost spy-like levels of secrecy and protection like this guy has his cheese hidden behind something which is opened by pulling out a cheese related book pun. Here are the books that were turned into puns.
- Brighton Roquefort
- How Green Was My Cheese
- Brie Encounter
- Swiss Cheese Family Robinson
- East of Edam
- Grated Expectations
- Fromage to Eternity
- Waiting for Gouda
I don't even care, all of those are the best.
The romance between Wallace and Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham-Carter) is lovely, she seems to really like Wallace and towards the end of the film, it seems like they're gonna get together if they weren't already there. However, I don't think it was really all that necessary, I mean...it really didn't do anything to plot aside from him being a dick during his transformation, her taking it the wrong way and then finding out he was just trying to hide his horrible secret from her. It's a cute little side plot but aside from taking elements of King Kong, I don't really think they did much with it and they could have done y'know? I don't really know what they could have done with it because all these romance stories are the same but...c'mon this is Wallace & Gromit, you guys made a penguin a chicken and turned him into a diamond thief! Do something crazy with it. It was still a cute little side plot, even if it wasn't all that necessary.
Gromit went to Dogwarts University which is probably my favourite dog related pun to come out of these, like you know someone read/saw Harry Potter and thought damn, let's get a joke with that in there and I'm glad they did, I wonder what house he was sorted into...hold on I'm gonna google it.
*25 minutes later*
After a fair amount of searching I have discovered that Gromit did not have a house, however, he did graduate with a double first in Engineering for Dogs and I'm both amazed and mad that a plasticine dog got a higher grade in uni than I ever could.
Moving onto the negatives, there are only two big ones that managed to bug me so much that they needed to be mentioned. I've already briefly talked about one of them, that being the fact that it's said only a gold bullet can kill the beast and yet...a fall from a great height manages it? Or was it Wallace as the were-rabbit sacrificing himself to save Gromit after he saved him? I don't know but that bull is not explained at all and I feel like it should have been. I know that not all questions in films should be answered...like how did that weird loop in Predestination start? But when you state in your film that the only way to do something is with this thing and then you do another thing you can't just throw a shrug in there like "Oh well, I guess the answer was love after all". No. I won't accept it. I'll accept literally any explanation that's not that, or at least explain how the love did it. This isn't Frozen, it's Wallace & Gromit. I won't deny that there is obviously a love between these characters but...fuck just explain it and I'll be happy pal.
The other thing that bothered me was the name change. Apparently this wasn't originally intended to be called Curse of the Were-Rabbit, it was meant to be The Great Vegetable Plot but apparently, that didn't resonate very well with American audiences and that sucks because that's a funny name. How is it funny? Because plot refers to a mystery and where veggies grow so now you know and now you know what you missed out on. That's fucking funny dude.
The whole film is just...ok overall. The villain is...predictable, the romance is cute and unnecessary, the plot has potential but thinking about it, I feel like they could have done something different with it. If you wanna check it out I'm not gonna stop you but don't get your hopes up too high with it, it's just cute and kinda bland. That's it for today, peace out and don't try to brainwash yourself...it's probably not gonna work.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this short. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this short then please go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
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