WALLACE AND GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL (2025)

Bliss.  In spite of only a handful of Wallace and Gromit stop-motion animations since 1989, and this but the second at feature-length, any lowered expectations of modified rapture can be put aside; VENGEANCE MOST FOWL as good as anything in the Nick Park canon following the adventures of gonzo invertor Wallace and his patient dog/helpmate/companion Gromit, that most empathetic of creatures.  A previous feature, CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT/’05, though wonderful, gave the impression the series would always be at its very best in half-hour shorts.  Not so!  Here, triumphantly equaling their best without any commercially-driven sequelitis faults of going bigger/better/bloated.  Instead, retaining the sweet-natured charm and capacity to reduce any open-hearted viewer to incessant ear-to-ear grins rather than pushing to trigger hardened boffo responses, all while carefully building & positioning an explosively propulsive climax that’s cumulatively hilarious, kinetically thrilling, beautiful simply as design and creatively overwhelming.  (How’d they physically do that?, really not coming into play as you’re too involved in character & story to bother with stop-motion technicalities.  A second watch will do for catching up on the amazing craft & technique that goes into these things.)  This time Wallace creates ‘Norbit,’ an intelligent gnome designed to take domestic drudgery & chores off Gromit’s hands . . . er, paws; and it jolts the delicate balance of their routine, usurping Gromit’s place in it as well as making him jealous.  But there’s worse to come as a Zoo-incarcerated villain from the past (Feathers McGraw of THE WRONG TROUSERS/’93) has figured out a way to reprogram & reproduce the gnomes to rob the town blind and facilitate a jail break.  (Zoo break?)  It’s Cautionary A.I. tale meets THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE; and just about perfect.  Refined modeling materials used on the action figures no longer regularly capture the animator’s fingerprints.  But other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Post prologue, the opening sequence showing the daily routine of the boys getting up and having breakfast with help from mechanized efficiency gadgets (very Rube Goldberg) undoubtedly inspired by the opening scenes of Buster Keaton & comic rival Joe Roberts doing much the same in THE SCARECROW, a comic short from 1920.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/09/scarecrow-1920.html

ENRICO IV / HENRY IV (1984)

Marco Bellocchio’s adaptation of Luigi Pirandello’s famous play disappoints on every level; not excluding source material.  Not that you can’t see its appeal as catnip to past-prime stars of a certain age.  Here Marcello Mastroianni is the modern man who’s bumped on his head and comes to believe he’s Medieval Emperor Enrico IV.  Living in an old cloisters, he passes the days surrounded by paid lackeys playing court games while his relatives bring in a psychologist who has a plan to shock him back to reality.  But is he really mad or just playing a game of control to avoid life’s responsibilities?  (This too another form of madness, no?)  Opened out with a big waiting game for the rest of the cast (Claudia Cardinale and other relatives hoping for a breakthru) there’s a bit of amusement seeing Luciano Bartoli play the younger Enrico in what seems to be old Mastroianni hair styles from his matinee idol days.  But it all plays as if everyone is vamping for a tune that never shows up.  The pursuit of empty prestige is palpable.  Pass.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  Mastroianni made lots of unhappy choices in his later years, but the old lion was no spent force.  Given a decent script and a sympathetic director, he’s a worthy father and opponent fit for sparring with Massimo Troisi under Ettore Scola’s direction in CHE ORA È?  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2024/02/che-ora-e-1989.html    OR: Courting controversy, and likely to be showing its age, Peter O’Toole & director Peter Medak play similar games in their Pirandello influenced social satire THE RULING CLASS/’72.

BLACK GRAVEL / SCHWARZER KIES (1961)

Intriguing, if not fully functional German film noir straddles two major periods of post-WWII German economy: Black Market manipulators and the fast emerging Industrial Boom.  Co-writer/director Helmut Käutner does a great job loading on the ‘anything goes’ atmosphere usually associated with lawless border towns (had Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL/’59 made it to Germany?) here divided not by a river cutting North from South, but between job-seeking local drifters & grifters still adjusting to the New Germany in a well-paid transient market, and the continuing U.S. presence (military, political, entrepreneurial) running the show and fitfully keeping order.  What he doesn’t do so well is set up the action and characters which don’t click in till the second act is well under way.   Once that happens, the plot still has to fight thru some painfully indicative acting by the leads as an old flame is rekindled between gravel driver Robert Neidhardt (a late film debut at 39) and his ex, Ingmar Zeisberg, now married to an American Major.  As to the missing gravel that drives the plot?  It’s not stolen for sale by some nefarious third party, but swiped to bury a dead dog and a pair of lovers (one an American) accidentally killed and seriously complicating already complicated relationships.  Good nasty fun, with an alarmingly funny twist when a happy solution is suggested by a CIA plant who naturally thinks everything can be explained thru East/West conspiracies before a cascade of bad timing puts the kibosh on any possible future.   Definitely worth a look, but some indulgence needed.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  The film was slightly reedited between its premiere and general release, much to its detriment.  Especially the end where, in the shortened general release cut, the metaphoric postman not only doesn’t ring twice, but never gets to the mailbox.  Who thought this a good idea?!  Only a minute longer (113" to 114"), it makes all the difference.