Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

8.5/10. Watched this yesterday evening on DVD.

Unlike many animated features, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit doesn't feel programmed to appeal to “kids of all ages” for maximimum box-office appeal. Rather, the feature-length debut of Wallace and his dog Gromit stays true to the winning formula established in the previous shorts, and the result is funny, appealing and gorgeous to look at.

Ostensibly a horror movie for kids, the eponymous monster is adorably dopey, and Curse is never particularly scary (that said, the transformation scenes may ever-so-gently cross the line). The climax is exciting without careening into chaos and manages to pay homage to King Kong without feeling forced. (Here I was going to say that the movie's Oscar was well deserved. Then I remembered that I haven’t seen any of 2005’s other animated features, much less the other two nominees.)

I’m a fan of stop-motion animation, but the fact that it’s so precise and time-consuming makes me squirm. I could never spend five years working on something like The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, producing just three seconds of usable footage each day. But in this case, the effort paid off. Produced for just $30 million, Curse grossed $192 million worldwide in theaters last year.