Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit

Lady Tottington and Wallace face serious vegetable security issues in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Herald rating: * * * * * 

Entrancing for an 8-year-old, entertaining for his Poppa, engaging ... any age. Wallace, the cheese-loving inventor (voice: Peter Sallis), and Gromit, his faithful mute mutt, return to the small screen with the best family DVD in ages.

In their first feature, Lady Campanula Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter) is holding her family's 517th annual Giant Vegetable Fete at her estate. Gardeners for miles are lovingly nurturing and jealously protecting their giant tomatoes, melons, zucchini and carrots.

Our unlikely lads run a pest control service named Anti-Pesto, and are responsible for keeping bunnies out of the veges.

Because Lady Tottington is a humane member of society, they cannot do away with the critters. Wallace has invented the Bun-Vac to suck the rabbits out of their holes and into a giant tube until they can be housed in comfort at Anti-Pesto headquarters, where they can feast on veges that won't make the competition.

Enter the rascally Lord Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes). He wants to marry Lady Tottington, or more particularly her money, and will sabotage the competition and Anti-Pesto. It may be no coincidence that the Were-Rabbit appears - a huge beast with a red polka-dot tie that terrorises the village.

But the ever-resourceful Wallace has a new invention, the Mind-o-Matic, which can brainwash rabbits into thinking they do not like vegetables.

Nick Park, the animator who conceived the tales as his art-school degree project, constructs his characters and sets out of Plasticine - well, he used to.

Now he's been lured to Hollywood, to DreamWorks, breaking through with Chicken Run, he leans a little more heavily on artists and computers (250 people, 43 Gromits, 35 Wallaces, 2.8 tonnes of Plasticine and one Austin A35 van, went into the movie, producing 3 seconds of usable footage per day).

It produces a glorious pastiche of English-ness, a world where Ealing comedy meets Hammer Horror over a cup of tea with the vicar; of bad puns (written, spoken and visual) and naughty double entendres for mature viewers.

The two-disk DVD has more features than you could shake a carrot stick at. Park and his offsider, Steve Box, offer commentary for the feature, Park reveals how the duo started life, Bonham Carter and Fiennes front up for a behind-the-scenes and the craft of creating the characters is explained.

The Amazing World Of Wallace & Gromit goes a little deeper into the story and there are further features - a look into Aardmaan studios, nine deleted scenes, an alternative opening and two alternative endings.

To prepare for the film, production teams created 10 short films where Wallace and Gromit demonstrate some of their inventions, notably the Soccamatic for friendless footballers and the Snoozematron, which fluffs your pillows when you can't sleep.

Box gets centre-stage with his Bafta-winning short Stage Fright, about a vaudeville dog juggler, before the set is rounded off with five photo galleries of storyboards and designs and four interactive kids' games.

* DVD, video rental today