'Wallace & Gromit' prove there's no place like gnome

'Vengeance Most Fowl' is a delightful way to start 2025

It seems unfair that Wallace & Gromit don’t get their due as action heroes simply because they’re made of clay. Danny Boyle once called the toy train chase in 1993’s “The Wrong Trousers” the best action sequence in a movie, and I can’t believe it didn’t have some influence on the train sequence in “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.”

After a much-too-long hiatus (since 2009’s “A Matter of Loaf and Death”), everyone’s favorite eccentric British inventor and his loyal (if quietly exasperated) beagle companion are back. Aardman Animations’ “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” premiering Friday on Netflix, is a feature-length delight packed with all the charming humor, visual cleverness and, yes, exquisitely choreographed action that we want. I can think of few better ways to embark on 2025 than with this delightful movie.

“Vengeance Most Fowl” is in fact a sequel of sorts to “The Wrong Trousers,” in which Wallace and Gromit foiled the plans of master penguin thief Feathers McGraw to steal a rare diamond.

As “Vengeance” opens, Feathers is cooling his claws in prison, plotting revenge “Cape Fear”-style. Back at home, Wallace (voiced ably by Ben Whitehead, taking over for the late Peter Sallis) has once again gone overboard with his “time-saving” inventions, including a “Pat-O-Matic” machine that pets Gromit automatically, to Gromit’s mute consternation.

Wallace’s latest invention is a robot garden gnome, Norbot (voiced by Reece Shearsmith of “Inside No. 9”), who cheerfully does chores around the house. Gromit is wary of the new technology, especially after Wallace builds more robot gnomes and starts a home repair business with them (called, of course, Gnome Improvements).

(Photos courtesy of Netflix)

Gromit’s skepticism is warranted, especially after the tech-savvy Feathers figures out how to get past Wallace’s cheese-based encryption software and hack into the robots. He reprograms the gnomes to serve more nefarious goals, including freeing him from prison and stealing back the diamond, and framing Wallace for the crime. Only the savvy Gromit can stop him.

Co-directed by creator Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, “Vengeance” is packed wall-to-wall with witty jokes, pop culture references, groan-worthy puns and blink-if-you-miss-them gags (like the copy of a magazine called “Gardens of the Galaxy” on Wallace’s end table.

These set the table for the movie’s truly breathtaking set pieces, including a climactic boat chase that ends with a showdown on a barge teetering like a seesaw over a canyon. That “Dead Reckoning” composer Lorne Balfe also co-wrote the music for “Vengeance” with Julian Nott feels like things coming full circle.

The stop-motion animation is smoother and more fluid than in Aardman’s lumpier earlier efforts (silicone has largely replaced clay for many of the models). But the handmade care and attention to detail can be felt in every frame.

For a movie about killer robot gnomes, “Vengeance Most Fowl” is surprisingly gentle about the notion that technology poses a threat. (Gnomes don’t hurt people, penguins do.) Fine, maybe we can learn to live with smartphones and virtual assistants. Just keep your robotic paws off Wallace & Gromit.

“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” premieres Friday on Netflix.