Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl ★★★½

IT’S extraordinary how well stop-motion animation can convey emotions with the slightest of movement.

In Nick Park’s latest Wallace & Gromit outing, all we have to see is a slight raising of the eyebrows and shrug from Gromit to know what he thinks of his master’s latest home-made invention.

And villain Feathers McGraw just has to turn and look at the camera for a few seconds to tell us all we need to know about his nefarious plans.

Park and his partners have been working with these characters for years now through six films including the second feature-length effort, 2025’s Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, and it shows in all the right ways.

The latest story has Wallace inventing a robotic gnome to help Gromit do chores around the garden. Wallace’s neighbours catch on and soon the gardening gnome has been turned into a business.

But we also see the return of the villainous penguin Feathers whom we first encountered way back in 1993’s The Wrong Trousers.

From his prison cell Feathers takes revenge on Wallace and Gromit, who foiled his attempt to steal a diamond, by reprogramming the gnome to do evil and eventually there are dozens of the little fellas running around causing havoc.

It’s all great fun, particularly the references to other films. For example, Feathers does chin-ups in his cell to the music from Cape Fear and is later seen in full Bond villain mode sitting in a chair stroking a cat.

This is another welcome entry in the franchise. It runs for a tight 80 minutes and should keep the whole family entertained.

Watched on Netflix.