Wallace and Gromit, Curse of the Ware Rabbit

When I was younger I used to be a fan of the short films like the ‘Wrong Trousers’ and ‘A close Shave’. I didn’t actually make it to see When ‘The Curse of The Ware Rabbit’ at the cinema, but at the time I remember being surprised when I found out it had received a mixed reception. After going to The ‘Animated Adventures’ exhibition I decided I would see if I could borrow this and finally get round to watching it (it says something that it took me ages to find someone with a copy of the film).


Overall I was actually quite disappointed after watching the Wallace and Gromit’s first feature length film. You would never expect the most realistic or even plausible plot line with this type of film; however, with this in mind I expected to get lost in their world of gadgets and ridiculous scenarios for over an hour. Unfortunately although all the parts were there for this to be a success, the original animator and creator Nick Parks, the same two main characters and a large amount of ‘British-ness’ it somehow didn’t have the same captivating power I expected.

At first I thought it was just because I had grown up since I first watched these shows, but my mum who had also watched the first ones said about 20mins in, they should have stopped at the last one, this isn’t nearly as good. I can’t quite put my finger on what it was that didn’t really work in my opinion, but all I can say is the plot didn’t seam to grab me and although their inventive flair was present, it wasn’t nearly so prominent as in it’s predecessors.

Having said the film did open with one of the best invention sequences I have seen so far, for anyone who hasn’t seen Wallace and Gromit before, they remind me slightly of the Honda advert from a few years ago called the cog, where one small action set off the well planned sequence of movement before it reached the end point. The alarm Clock sequence is similar in this way, it is very much how I remember the old short films to be, there are a few extracts in the following trailer of how it works if your interested.



Overall I wasn’t that impressed with this film, however this was more due to the plot than the animation itself. It was quite refreshing to see the fingerprints in the plastercine, and you could really feel how much attention had gone into creating each individual set and expression. I still like the style of animation, but once again (at the risk of sounding like a broken record) the thing that I love more than anything is the detail that went into creating it.