I had enjoyed all the WaG shorts as well as The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Alas, their only outing since (Shaun the Sheep doesn't count) had been World of Invention, a 2010 documentary miniseries that doesn't match the rest in humor, let alone adventure. Well, my parents wasted little time in inviting me to see this new addition to Netflix with them, and I wasted little time in saying yes.
In case you need a refresher on The Wrong Trousers from 1993, goofy inventor Wallace (Ben Whitehead, replacing the late Peter Sallis) and especially his mute but hypercompetent pooch, Gromit, foiled thieving penguin Feathers McGraw, who got sent to a zoo. Now Wallace has created a mechanical gnome, Norbot (Reece Shearsmith), who does well enough at gardening to make local news, gaining Feathers' attention. Thanks to both overreaching and lax policing, Feathers can hack Norbot remotely, making him build a platoon of gnomes who pretend to help the neighborhood but swipe yard implements for machine parts. The scheme is to bust Feathers out, steal the soon-to-be-exhibited Blue Diamond again, and frame Wallace.
Chief Inspector Mackintosh (Peter Kay) from TCotWR also returns, approaching retirement but keeping a hard demeanor that would not go over well in the U.S. And the series finally adds an iota of ethnic diversity with Constable Mukherjee (Lauren Patel), a naive novice who nevertheless proves more reliably intuitive regarding the present case. None of the other characters are worth naming, but the humans are basically all the kind of dim bulbs who tend to dominate family fare. No wonder Feathers was so successful until he met Gromit. The bird actually has Wallace's MacGyver-esque engineering prowess without the flakiness, tho he still underestimates the heroes.
I don't feel as sorry for the put-upon Gromit as I have with some past episodes, but his personal conflict is pretty focal. He's become disenchanted with technological advances, especially when Norbot seems to be replacing him in every way. By contrast, Wallace is terribly slow to entertain the idea that the gnomes are troublemakers. This may point to commentary on the present, but the setting's tech is quite a mishmash of eras (e.g., rotary dials). In any event, the moral is more nuanced than the anti-progress stance in much of sci-fi.
I think I like the results a little better than TCotWR, if only because the gags never get naughty. In any decade before the 2010s, VMF would have a G rating. Some of the jokes, particularly puns, don't translate well on this side of the pond, but I didn't feel left out. The worst I can say is that the story gets formulaic and some twists are predictable. Really, the target audience probably doesn't look for much innovation except in the inventions themselves; on that front, it's satisfying.
The ending hints at a sequel. I'd welcome one, but I also don't mind if it never comes, because VMF could make a sweet finale.
No comments:
Post a Comment