Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

image for Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Short takes

Not suitable under 6; parental guidance to 7 (violence, scary scenes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
  • a review of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 24 December 2024.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 6 Not suitable due to violence and scary scenes.
Children aged 6–7 Parental guidance recommended due to violence.
Children aged 8 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild themes, some scenes may scare young children
Length: 79 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Wallace (voice of Ben Whitehead) and Gromit have become local heroes since they helped to capture Feathers McGraw, a penguin who stole the famous blue diamond. Feathers was sent to prison and is serving his time in a zoo. Wallace has recently invented a ‘smart’ gnome robot called Norbot (Reece Shearsmith) who can clean and tidy the house and garden in no time, much to the annoyance of Gromit. Gromit feels that Wallace has become more attached to Norbot than him. This all changes, however, when the dastardly Feathers manages to bypass the prison guards, hacks into Wallace’s computer, and reprogrammes Norbot to ‘evil’ rather than ‘good’.

Norbot, along with an army of gnome clones, wreak havoc amongst the neighbourhood. Wallace becomes a wanted criminal and has to go to great lengths to clear his good name.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Robots; Revenge; Characters in peril.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, mostly done for laughs, including several pratfalls, and characters being knocked over and hit.
Other violence includes:

  • A large box carton falls on top of Gromit, knocking him flat.
  • Norbot chops off Gromit’s shoes with an edge trimmer.
  • Norbot gets a circular saw and welding tools and starts destroying everything.
  • Gromit gets knocked over by a lawnmower.
  • A policewoman crashes through Wallace’s front door and into the stairs.
  • Wallace falls out of a window.
  • Gromit nearly crashes his car into a van but hits a fence instead.
  • Wallace, tied to a wheelchair, is carried away, crashing through the front door, knocking down the chief inspector, nearly crashing into a van, and lands in a canal boat.
  • A canal boat bursts into flames when it falls a long distance.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Several scary scenes with thunder and lightning, dark skies and rain.
  • Norbot’s eyes glow brightly while he’s charging. They also turn to black when he’s reprogrammed as evil. He also turns his whole body around.
  • The evil gnomes are quite scary.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Feathers McGraw is arrested and is seen handcuffed and in chains.
  • Wallace’s house starts to shake. They walk carefully down into the basement where they find an army of gnome robots. The basement has become a workshop which is red and dark and fiery.
  • Gromit is locked in a shed and bangs on a window to be let out.
  • Norbot uses a flame thrower to light a fire.
  • An angry mob confronts Wallace and calls him an evil inventor.
  • Gromit finds himself in a lion cage. The lion roars loudly and is about to eat him.
  • Wallace is seen tied up to a chair and with a muzzle over his mouth.
  • Wallace and Gromit are locked in a cupboard.
  • The final chase scene is quite intense, with Wallace and Gromit pursuing Feathers in canal boats. Wallace falls into the water and is dragged along behind. Gromit manages to get on board Feathers’ boat, which travels over a very high viaduct. Feathers turns the boat around in the middle of the viaduct, leaving it balancing precariously over the edge. It tips and Gromit begins to fall into a long drop, beneath which is a fiery boat, but he is saved at the last minute.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Wallace is seen entering his bath without clothing but nothing is shown.
  • Wallace is seen in his underpants.
  • A toilet tent is ripped away, exposing a man sitting on the toilet with his pants down.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • The robots give Wallace too much ‘snoozy choc’ to put him to sleep.

Coarse language

There is some very mild coarse language in this movie, including:

  • ‘Someone pinched their butt’ (their water butt).
  • ‘Flipping Nora’.

In a nutshell

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is the second feature-length film released by the Wallace & Gromit franchise, featuring Aardman’s much loved characters. The film is very funny and likely to appeal to most age groups, however, due to the level of violence and some scary scenes it isn’t suitable for children under 6 and parental guidance is recommended for 6–7-year-olds.

The main messages from this movie are to never stop being creative and that revenge doesn’t pay.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Loyalty
  • Inventiveness
  • Courage
  • Bravery
  • Perseverance.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Taking revenge rarely brings anything positive.