Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) Rated G Starring: The voices of Peter Sallis, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Ralph Fiennes Rating: out of

In Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the pair have started a successful pest-control business named Anti-Pesto, which humanely disposes of rabbits who venture into the vegetable gardens of the local townsfolk. The town is abuzz with anticipation for Lady Tottington's Giant Vegetable Contest. Everything seems to be going smoothly until a beast threatens the local crops and puts the future of Anti-Pesto in doubt. Fearing that Anti-Pesto's humane method of dealing with such a creature won't work, Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes), a gun-toting hot-shot, enters the scene vowing to slay the beast and win the heart Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham-Carter) in the process. Wallace and Gromit not only have to figure out how to beat Quartermaine, but Wallace has to figure out how to woo Lady Tottington too.

A visit to Wallace and Gromit's world is a welcome respite from the CGI animated fare that's more or less replaced hand-drawn animation in recent years. As in Aardman Animation's previous feature film, Chicken Run, the majority of the film was created through stop-motion animation. The hands-on approach gives the film a charm that recent animated features like The Incredibles and Finding Nemo lack. Although those are fine films, when compared to Wallace and Gromit's handmade world, they seem a bit cold.

For example, the facial expressions of Gromit are incredibly detailed. In a computer-animated film, this would be acheived by scanning in the facial movements of an actor and then digitally replicating them on-screen via a computerized version of the character. In stop motion animation, the emotions are replicated by moving a figure a little bit, taking a picture and then moving the figure a bit more -- repeating the process until you have a moving, believable character. It's much more impressive when you realize that it takes many hours of work to produce just a few seconds of film. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit took five years to complete.

The movie's other big positive feature is its sense of humor. It's clean enough to be appreciated by kids with enough clever "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" moments to get a chuckle out of adults as well. (There are a few ill-advised attempts at some naughty Austin Powers-like visual gags but, thankfully, they're so low-key, you might miss them.) Overall, though, the humor is spot-on.

The only downside to the movie is that Wallace and Gromit fans have seen some of the duo's unique contraptions (or versions of them) before in the short films. The first part of the movie is obviously intended to introduce the pair to a new, wider audience who haven't seen the earlier shorts. This is all well and good but, for those looking for new adventures, it's hard to sit through the somewhat familiar scenes of their morning routine yet again. I can't count that against the movie though because the film does a great job of letting those new to these charming and funny characters without letting down fans who've been with them since the start.

Highly recommended for all ages.

Trivia: DreamWorks wanted Aardman to replace Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace since the first animated short, with a well-known actor that American audiences would recognize. According to Entertainment Weekly, they politely but firmly refused; instead, they got Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter to play roles. (Source: The Internet Movie Database)