The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

Nick Park’s claymation national treasures try to save the village vegetable competition with their pest control business – but an attempt at brainwashing predatory rabbits backfires badly.
“The eccentricity feels as English as a Sunday roast, yet its appeal is evidently universal. Will there be a funnier sight in cinema this year than Wallace’s turquoise Y-fronts springing onto Victor’s startled face?” Anthony Quinn, The Independent, 2005 The second full-length feature from Aardman Animation was the fourth to feature Nick Park’s lovably daffy inventor Wallace (voiced, as ever, by Peter Sallis) and his silent yet infinitely expressive canine assistant Gromit. Thankfully, substantial US funding had no apparent effect on its glorious parochialism: the only difference is that the never-never Northern England of the earlier films is now rendered in far greater detail. The budget also paid for Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes to incarnate the lady of the manor Lady Campanula Tottington and her would-be paramour Victor Quartermaine, whose rivalry with Wallace for her affections is complicated when the latter’s Mind-O-Matic accidentally creates a ravening beast that could have come straight out of a Hammer horror film, were it not for the fact that it’s obviously a giant rabbit. It’s as exuberantly inventive as anything by Pixar, albeit (mostly) achieved with far more old-fashioned methods. Aardman’s first stop-motion feature was Chicken Run (2000), while other modern masters of the form include Henry Selick – The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Coraline (2009) – and Jan Švankmajer, creator of Alice (1988).
2005 United Kingdom, USA
Directed by
Nick Park, Steve Box
Produced by
Claire Jennings, Carla Shelley, Peter Lord, David Sproxton, Nick Park
Written by
Steve Box, Nick Park, Mark Burton, Bob Baker
Featuring
Peter Sallis, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter