Aardman Animation/DreamWorks

I have deliberately remained vague in my plot summary so as not to spoil the myriad of delights to be gleaned from this picture, but suffice to say that all the subtle bits of humor for both the eye and ear one has come to expect from Wallace and Gromit are on ample display. Wit and whimsy practically oozes out of every frame.

Park and his co-director Steve Box (both of whom also co-wrote the screenplay with Mark Burton and Bob Baker) have crafted a streamlined story that crackles with mirth and excitement, cleverly mining the tropes of horror movies past just enough that the film never lapses into parody. And what would Wallace and Gromit be without Julian Nott’s jaunty theme accompanying their misadventures.

Two Oscar-nominated thespians join the cast, and for once it doesn’t smack of stunt-casting. Helena Bonham Carter (fresh off Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride) plays Lady Tottington, the chair of the Vegetable Competition who’s Cheese Doodle hair and red licorice lips catches Wallace’s fancy, and Ralph Fiennes (who voiced Rameses in DreamWorks’ Prince of Egypt) is her pompous, pompadoured would-be suitor Victor Quartermaine, who certainly doesn’t live up to his name. Both actors dig into their roles with relish, reveling at the chance to poke fun at themselves and the “vedy English�? roles they regularly play.

In a time when pixels have replaced pencils in the creation of motion picture animation, it is refreshing to wallow in the joys of an even more “antiquated�? medium, Claymation. It may not feature the heights of today’s technology, but you’ll thoroughly enjoy this particular feat of clay.