WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL

Here is the good news up front. This is Aardman doing what Aardman does best — a wildly inventive, very funny British caper with a criminal penguin, a robot gnome, and a wordless dog who is smarter than everyone around him. It's clean. No foul language, no drugs, no alcohol, no crude content. The violence is comical slapstick, and it's genuinely funny.

It's also built like a proper detective thriller, complete with a chase that borrows shamelessly (and delightfully) from the last MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE — only with canal barges instead of trains. The one caution isn't crudeness. It's fear. The film is made to be scary, and the music leans hard on familiar frightening tropes. Children under six will get genuinely spooked, even though the scares resolve into laughs.

So: if you have older kids, teens, or an evening free, take the trip — it's a treat. If you're choosing for a preschooler, wait a few years.

A criminal penguin named Feathers McGraw once stole the Blue Diamond — until Wallace, a cheerful inventor, and his long-suffering dog, Gromit, trapped him and handed him over to the police. Because he's a penguin, his maximum-security prison is the local zoo.

Now Feathers wants vengeance. When Wallace unveils his latest gadget — Norbot, a gnome robot that obeys voice commands — the penguin sees his chance. From behind bars, he finds a way to turn a helpful invention into something far more dangerous, and to make Wallace and Gromit look like the guilty ones.

Four stars, and they're earned. This is a masterclass in comic filmmaking that stitches together the best of the crime-story tradition — a dash of GET SMART, a whiff of Agatha Christie, the ticking-clock energy of a great film noir — and plays it all for enormous laughs.

Wallace's automated house alone is a symphony of invention: alarms that slap you awake, a bath that dumps you in, a conveyor that dresses you and delivers you to your toast. Gromit, silent and wise, carries the emotional weight without a single word. The jeopardy builds to a genuine crescendo, and the final barge chase is a giddy set piece.

The only quibble isn't a flaw so much as a warning label: it's made to frighten, and it succeeds. For anyone who enjoys British humor, this is as good as the form gets.

There's a lot here to love and very little to worry over. The film runs on a strong, clear moral spine: love triumphs over evil, plain and simple. Gromit's loyalty and quiet wisdom are the heart of the story, and his devotion to a friend who doesn't always deserve it is the engine that saves the day.

The movie is also unusually thoughtful about technology. Wallace's gadgets are a running joke, but the film has something to say — the same invention that tidies a yard can be twisted to serve a villain's ends. It handles both the pitfalls and the advantages of our machines in an inspired, hilarious way, without ever preaching.

That's a picture of the world Scripture recognizes: good things bent toward evil, and love that refuses to let evil have the last word. "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21) could serve as the film's quiet thesis.

This is Aardman at the top of its game — clean, clever, warm-hearted, and very funny, with a moral center that holds. The only catch is the fright factor, real enough to spook the youngest viewers. So here's our answer, the same one we opened with: worth the trip — ages 6 and up. Round up the older kids and enjoy.