For those fans who wondered whether Nick Park’s Aardman Animation Studios could sustain the inventiveness of its short works over the course of a feature, the success that was Chicken Run must have come as mixed blessing. That film exhibited all the hallmarks of the studio—the ability to craft character both in clay and within the context of a reliably machine-tooled (meant in the best sense) three-act narrative, myriad subtle and not-so-subtle references to classic film, an obligatory, intricately choreographed chase sequence, and a warm humor that renders most American animated work positively crass in comparison (perhaps not much of an achievement these days)—but as much fun as watching chickens play POW was, it left a question: what about Wallace and Gromit? The ever-deepening emotional and technical complexity in the progression from A Grand Day Out through The Wrong Trousers to A Close Shave certainly suggested the possibility of a full-length work, even if the joys of all three were decidedly, literally, in miniature. Perhaps then, the only conclusion to be drawn was that Park and his cohorts, whose care in sculpting and animating their creations has always been readily apparent, wanted a practice run before shepherding their flagship duo into the wilds of an international theatrical release.

The magic, then, of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is that Park and Aardman have managed to provide more of the same pleasures found in their first three adventures—with emphasis falling on the “more” and “pleasures.” As per the shorts, we find the quintessentially provincial Brit Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his dog Gromit involved in a charmingly cockeyed mode of employ, here as proprietors of “PESTO,” a humane pest removal service that, on the eve of the town’s annual Giant Vegetable contest has W&G racing around town in the dead of night to protect the competitors (giant carrots, melons, pumpkins) from terrifying, ferocious…bunny rabbits. Who incidentally end up infesting the whole of Wallace’s home after capture. Their success is such that they’re even called upon by local royalty, Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter in her second animated turn of the year), to purge her lands of rabbits before they play host to the tournament. Wallace, ever the bachelor, and the Lady make tentative stabs towards romance sending the competition, gun-toting sneerer Victor Quatermaine (Ralph Fiennes voice-mugging furiously) and his evil dog into fits, but their courtship is interrupted when PESTO fails to prevent a rash of veggie murders, and the town’s faith in their ability to capture the culprit (dubbed the Were-Rabbit by the local pastor who, if he weren’t composed of clay, might’ve walked right off the set of some Hammer gem) evaporates as additional legumes are discovered dead.

Almost needless to say, Wallace’s cockamamie inventions lie at the core of the mystery, and it doesn’t reveal too much of the plot to say that a combination of Wallace’s patented bunny vacuum and some sort of mind ray combined in an effort to humanely remove the rabbits of their veg-eating impulse plays a central role. But the specifics of plot (here a warmed-over mishmash of King Kong, Jaws, a dash of Tremors, and Frankenstein, filtered through a Hammer-meets-Monty Python sensibility) aren’t exactly the draw. Instead, as has always been the case in the Wallace & Gromit films, the rewards lie in Park’s ability to translate the fundamental mechanisms of narrative to his clay universe with the utmost fidelity and care. Even though we can speak of all four films in broad strokes—they always end with a virtuoso chase sequence (the likes of which I’d dare any in Hollywood to match for inventiveness), Wallace never gets the girl, Gromit always saves the day, and the jokes divide fairly evenly between groaners (a photo of Wallace and Gromit at a “Dogwarts” graduation ceremony, a pair of ripe veggies held in place of Lady T.’s breasts), and the truly hilarious (a swirl of buck-toothed rabbits floating in the Bunny Vac’s weightless capture chamber, the ludicrous bottom-heavy Were-Rabbit howling at the moon), I could imagine any number of sequels following the same formula similarly successful ends. These films are proof positive that the failure of so much mainstream cinema is not due to our over-familiarity with certain clichéd situations, but our over-familiarity with half-assed attempts to re-create the reasons why those situations entered cliché in the first place.

Perhaps it’s the intense amount of time and craftsmanship that goes into making the W&G films breathe, and perhaps it’s the fact that what we’re watching are actually filmed objects that exist in three dimensional space, but Were-Rabbit feels miles more vital than the squeaky clean vistas of Pixar. Though I have praised Pixar in the past, most especially for Finding Nemo, watching the animators’ physical fingerprints dance across their creation’s clay features brought to the fore just how much we stand to lose in the onset of this digital age. (How long will it be before editing suites come complete with “fingerprint f/x” plug-ins?) Comparing the two is not unlike pitting a comfortable old chair (probably somewhat lumpy and out of fashion) against the shiny new stereo—while one certainly dazzles immediately, the other is what you’re still sitting on, and still will be for years to come. The world of Wallace & Gromit is nothing if not full of dumpy, misshapen creatures existing for modest reasons in a time that seems completely apart from our own. Yet for all their genteel charm, these are films of vast ambitions, but within circumscribed bounds—Park aims to create worlds from clay, not to change ours, just to make it a little more amusing for a while. In that sense, he and his film belong in the same breath as recent hand-hewn pieces of craftsmanship like Linklater’s Bad News Bears, Tim Burton’s similarly painstaking Corpse Bride, or Polanski’s take on Oliver Twist, all works of filmmakers who recognize that sometimes your materials might be better than you are, and in those cases it’s best to just sit back and do as little as possible.

In his review of the film, New York Times critic A.O. Scott apologized for confessing that “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit has forced me to ponder the deepest mysteries of cinema.” He needn’t have, and I won’t. For if we critics are unable to muster the weight of our faculties in the face of a real piece of cinema cloaked in the guise of children’s entertainment, or further, even recognize that the more we push those two categories further apart, the more we do a disservice to our audience, then we’ve truly failed. It’s easy to sit back in the ivory tower and rage against the dying of the light that leaves tough little movies from around the globe adrift in a handful of theaters, but I think we can do better. If audiences aren’t coming to what we’re suggesting—no, demanding—they see, then perhaps we need to go to them. Not so much in an effort to lead them “back,” as that presumptuously implies an imbalance of quality, but to broaden perspective and open up to other approaches. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit might be a good place to start. If I see a more detail-oriented, perfectly crafted film this year, I’ll be surprised. If I do, and it’s as warm, funny, and inventive, and evinces a similarly vast empathy for its characters, I’ll be stunned. And if, like Wallace & Gromit, it finds its way to the top of the box-office heap while winning universal raves, well, then I might just say there’s something onscreen to be hopeful about.