Directors: Steve Box, Nick Park
Writers: Steve Box, Nick Park
Stars: Peter Sallis, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes
1 Hour, 25 Minutes
Get it from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2oFDSBh
Synopsis
It’s a full moon. Someone sets off a sensor in the garden, and the alarm wakes Wallace and Gromit from sleep, dressing them like it was their own bat-cave. They run the Anti-Pesto security company, a humane pest control agency. They capture a rabbit and save the lady’s prize pumpkin. They put this rabbit in with the other ones; they’ve caught a lot of rabbits. The giant vegetable competition is coming up soon, and the whole town is involved. Gromit himself has a huge watermelon growing out back.
Wallace is putting on weight, and he doesn’t care for Gromit’s idea of a diet, so he makes a brain manipulation machine that will remove the desire for food.
They get a call from Lady Tottington, who has a rabbit problem. The place is just about overrun with rabbits. Wallace sucks them all up with a complicated vacuum machine. They even suck up Victor Quartermaine, Lady Tottington’s unwanted suitor. She thanks Wallace for eliminating two problems.
They are running out of space to store the rabbits, so they get the idea that if they connect the brain-altering machine to the giant rabbit sucker, they can mass-rehabilitate and release all their hundreds of rabbits, who will no longer want vegetables. Wallace puts his head in the machine and thinks “vegetables are bad.” The machine accidentally gets reversed, and Wallace gets a brain-load of rabbit.
Night falls, and everyone in town turns on the rabbit alarms in their gardens. One of the rabbits breaks out of his cage and goes on a vegetable-killing spree. Every alarm in town starts going off.
The next day, there’s a town meeting and the preacher comes in and describes the creature that attacked his veggies. He calls it a “were-Rabbit.”
Quartermaine comes in with his shotgun and says he’ll hunt the creature down.
That night, Gromit spots the were-rabbit and chases him with their truck. He and the truck get pulled into the rabbit hole, causing lots of mayhem all over town. When he gets home in the morning, he finds rabbit tracks leading to the back door of his house.
They find one rabbit that’s way too large in their basement. They build a new, much stronger cage for it. On the other hand, Gromit follows giant rabbit footprints that begin to look more and more human as they head to Wallace’s bedroom.
Wallace goes to Lady Tottington’s house to tell her about the rabbit they caught, and she shows him her special vegetable garden, her inner sanctum. She shows him her humongous carrot.
Quartermaine corners Wallace in the woods and threatens him. He wants to fight. Wallace starts shaking. Wallace changes into the were-rabbit. He’s huge, and he’s fluffy, and he’s twenty feet tall.
Quartermaine goes to see the preacher, who has researched were-rabbits in a book about supernatural beings. They can only be killed with a 24-“carrot” gold bullet.
The next morning, Wallace wakes up with rabbit ears. The big rabbit in the basement is starting to want cheese and talk, just like Wallace. Wallace starts rebuilding his machine, but he’s not as smart as he used to be. The rabbit in the basement, on the other hand, starts putting the pieces together.
Lady Tottington comes by the house and explains that the vegetable show will be cancelled if they can’t solve the rabbit problem immediately. Quartermaine is waiting outside with his gun and golden bullets; he’s just been waiting for the opportunity. He locks up Gromit and takes off after the were-rabbit, who is making a beeline for the vegetable show.
There’s a chase, and a battle, and another chase, and a mob of villagers with pitchforks and torches. The were-rabbit grabs lady Tottington and climbs up the building, King-Kong style.
Finally, there’s a climax between Wallace-Rabbit, Quartermaine, and Lady Tottington. “You can hop, but you can’t hide.” Of course, things all work out in the end.
Commentary
You can’t kill people in a kids’ movie, so they have a monster that kills vegetables. The animation is mostly stop motion, but there is a fair amount of CGI in this one too. The animation was really high-quality, probably better than Coraline that we saw last week, and certainly better than Mad Monster Party from a few days ago. I read that his took five years to make, and they were averaging 3 seconds of footage per day. Wow.
The jokes are scattered everywhere, as are visual Easter eggs that would appeal to all ages. There’s absolutely nothing scary about this movie, and it’d be good for literally any age. On the other hand, it was was a lot more entertaining for adult me than I expected, and I do recommend it for a laugh, but not a scare.