We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham’s “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” is the second “Wallace and Gromit” movie from Aardman Animations, the brilliant factory that creates wonderful comedies by utilizing stop-motion, clay-animated figures.

The other distringuishing feature of Aardman Animations is that they’re absolutely hilarious.

I knew their new movie was off to a great start when it introduces its mega-villain, Feathers McGraw, by doing a parody of the prison scenes from Martin Scorsese’ “Cape Fear” (1991). Any children’s film that manages to justify a Scorsese spoof is fine with me.

The story opens with McGraw’s twisted incarceration (it’s more than just a prison sentence), the result of him being thwarted by the kindly inventor Wallace and his silent but keen canine Gromit. While McGraw plots his revenge behind bars, a strange new development enters Wallace and Gromit’s home: a robot garden gnome named Norbot, who aides in household chores and garden pruning.

Gromit quickly realizes that Norbot is trouble, while Wallace is grateful to have an efficient worker and ignores Gromit’s warnings that Norbot is up to no good.

Norbot is such a funny character (a sort of cross between C-3P0 and a Gremlin), I never grew tired of it, nor all the facial expressions Gromit shares with Norbot that establishes their growing unease with each other. By the way, this movie is rated PG: the reason is stated as “Rude Humor,” but especially young audiences may find the eerie close-ups of Norbot to be kind of scary.

The timing couldn’t be better, with the rise in films portraying contemporary fears of artificial intelligence garnering sinister personas and agendas. In the wake of “Imaginary” and “AfrAId,” both from this year, as well as the just-warming-up “M3GAN” franchise, the depiction here of distrust and outright terror towards convenient home technology feels very “of the moment.”

There’s a sequence early on where Gromit witnesses how Norbot can “charge” itself overnight, a gag that is the only laugh-until-you-cry bit of movie hilarity I’ve had all year. A close second is the use of Matt Monro’s “Born Free” at a perfect moment.

The grand finale is a boat chase down a canal, which is not only inventive and hilarious, but quite exciting. This remarkable set piece manages to parody large scale action movies (a moment from “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning- Part 1” is given a nutty spin) and works as a proper climax.

One of the joys of being on the movie beat was getting to meet Peter Lord, one of the Aardman founders; Lord was doing press for “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” (2012) and agreed to an interview.

I got to tell him how I had recently dealt with a family tragedy and that watching “Shaun the Sheep” with my wife and laughing hysterically had been a shared comfort for us. Lord then opened his rucksack, pulled out a figurine and showed me one of the characters used in the Pirate movie: seeing it up close was dazzling, as it didn’t resemble an action figure as much as a pint-sized character, with immaculate detail in the costume and close-up details.

That level of care and quality has always been visible in their work. Moments in “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” that take place in an ornate garden are worth watching closely, as tiny insects or birds in the background are easy to miss.

There’s a lot here that is stunning in its creative richness, as well as the kind of inspired silliness we’d get from Monty Python. In terms of relevant satire, there’s enough here to make you laugh and appreciate both new and old technology.

Yes, this is a comedy for both technophiles and technophobes.

Where does the film fall on the Aardman film legacy? It’s as funny and dazzling as “Chicken Run” and “Shaun the Sheep Movie,” and better than “Flushed Away,” “Early Man” and “The Pirates!” (2012). I loved the first “Wallace and Gromit” movie, “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” but this one is so much funnier.

I’m writing this review on December 1st but I’m going to call it: this is the best comedy of 2024.

Four Stars