KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE #9: WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT (2005, dir by Nick Park, Steve Box, UK)

I love almost everything that British animation studio Aardman does. I love the Wallace and Gromit shorts, I love Chicken Run, and I really really love The Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists!/Band of Misfits. I'm not nuts about the Shaun the Sheep Movie, but they didn't actually make it for me, which is fine. All that to say that somehow, and I don't know how, I had never seen Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. It won the 2006 Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and yet it still has taken me fourteen years to watch it. I never claimed to be that bright.

The Tottington Hall Giant Vegetable Competition is only five days away, which means that the most important thing in the whole village is that rabbits be kept out of the vegetable gardens. Fortunately, Anti-Pesto is on the case! Or rather, Wallace and Gromit in their rabbit-capture, vegetable-protection business, is on the case. Rabbits cannot outsmart Anti-Pesto! But since Wallace and Gromit take the rabbits home and keep them rather than killing them (this isn't Watership Down, after all), the rabbits do quite a bit of outsmarting around the house. Lovely and enchanting Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham-Carter) wants her rabbit infestation to be removed humanely, as opposed to what her terrible boyfriend, Alan Quartermain (Ralph Fiennes), wants, which is to blow their bunny brains in and then marry Lady Tottington for her money. Wallace (Peter Sallies) is thrilled to oblige. Then she says that she wishes she could keep the rabbits, if only they didn't love veg so much, which gives him the idea of brainwashing the bunnies to hate the sight of vegetables, and that's where the trouble really starts!

What is great about Aardman films is that you can really see the human element in the animation. CG animation is of course made by humans, as computers are not yet entirely sentient, but you can't feel them except for in the voice acting. Stop-motion is all about the incredibly slow and painstaking movement of small clay models one minuscule bit at a time, and you can feel that when you watch it, as well as feeling it zip along, lightly and easily, all at the same time. It's like fairy magic mixed with immense human effort. And the fact that it comes out funny, exciting, suspenseful, and lovable is amazing.

This movie is, of course, as utterly charming and engaging as anything else made by Aardman, how could it be anything else? It has many unexpected plot twists, wonderful stop motion clay animation, terrific characters and voice actors, it's the entire package. I have seen it at last, and am here to tell you to do the same!

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog