Michael Rose Movies

Eccentric inventor Wallace (voice of Peter Sallis) and his faithful if often perplexed dog Gromit are back in their first feature-length adventure from animator Nick Park. Wallace and Gromit have launched a new business venture just in time for a major gardening competition in their neighborhood of West Wallaby. "Anti-Pesto" is a humane pest-relocation service in which Wallace and Gromit capture rabbits and other critters who have been eating the produce from local gardens and give them new homes somewhere else. Business has been going well, and when the woman hosting the garden show, Lady Tottington (voice of Helena Bonham Carter), discovers a massive tribe of rabbits has been making a mess of her garden, she calls in Wallace and Gromit to move the bunnies elsewhere. Wallace is quite taken with Lady Tottington, but he's not the only one -- Victor Quartermaine (voice of Ralph Fiennes) is a slick but arrogant upper-class type who wants to win Lady Tottington's hand (and fortune) and is convinced he can do a better job capturing the rabbits than Wallace. However, Wallace's attempts to brainwash the rabbits away from veggies using his latest invention has disastrous results, and soon Wallace has to deal with a beastly bunny as well as a heavily-armed Quartermaine. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit followed Park's previous film with the duo, A Close Shave, by ten years, and was produced after Park broke through to mainstream success with the feature Chicken Run. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Aardman Animations, the British clay-animation studio that created a cult sensation (and won three Academy awards) with its short subjects featuring Wallace and Gromit, presents its first feature film, a mixture of comedy and adventure. Mrs. Tweedy (voice of Miranda Richardson) operates a chicken farm, where most of the birds have resigned themselves to a short and uneventful life of producing eggs and ending up as the main course of someone's Sunday dinner. But when Rocky (voice of Mel Gibson), a rooster from America, arrives on the farm, things begin to change. Rocky soon finds romance with a hen named Ginger (voice of Julia Sawalha) who longs for a better life and has been trying to find a way out of the farm for some time; together they devise a plan to escape to freedom. However, Rocky and Ginger soon find themselves racing against the clock when Mrs. Tweedy decides it's time to turn the entire flock into chicken pies. Nick Park, director of the Wallace and Gromit shorts, co-directed Chicken Run with Peter Lord, who produced several Aardman projects and created animation for the TV series Pee-Wee's Playhouse. The voice cast also includes Jane Horrocks, Phil Daniels, and Timothy Spall. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The third film to feature the claymation adventures of Wallace and Gromit, A Close Shave finds the inventor and his dog with a new business, new friends, and a new adversary. As the story begins, the team has decided to open a window-washing service, with Wallace providing clever gadgets while Gromit does the real work. Yet Wallace continues inventing in his spare time and has recently built a new device, the Knit-O-Matic, to clean and shear sheep -- which comes in quite handy when a lost lamb takes refuge in their home. Wallace and Gromit soon discover that this lamb has escaped from a pair of evil sheep rustlers who want him back. The mastermind of the rustling scheme turns out to be Preston, a dog belonging to local wool-shop proprietor Wendolene Ramsbottom; complicating things further is the fact Wendolene is also the object of Wallace's romantic affections. When Preston frames Gromit as the rustler and plots to steal the Knit-O-Matic, the pair must find a way to save the sheep and themselves. Director Nick Park once again mixes inventive animation with deviously clever plotting and whimsical humor, a combination that won him his third "Best Animated Short" Oscar. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide