Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit

This is a cracking package. I'd go so far as to say that it is a Wensleydale, since that would be Wallace's highest accolade. The film alone is worth buying the DVD for, as it is one of the most inventive, funny, madcap cartoons of recent years, packed with extras that will please both adults and children alike.

Disc One features the film, along with two additional sections - one called Features and the other called DWK (DreamWorks Kids).

DWK:

1. Anti-Pesto SWAT Team: this bunny catching game has four stages, each one harder than the last, and if you capture sufficient bunnies, you earn yourself a password to crack open the Interactive DVD.

2. Victor Quartermaine's Guide To Cool: The nonsensical Victor guides you through what he thinks is cool.

3. Style With Lady Tottingham: a body matching game.

4. Build Your Own Bunny: a fascinating guide to how the model makers slowly build a bunny, from armature to finished article.

5. DVD Rom: armed with your password, you crack the DVD code and it enables you to start playing an interactive game. The aim is to help Wallace and Gromit find new customers for their Anti-Pesto company. Players go around the village square finding new clients, propelled by Wallace's typically madcap invention, The Spinatron.

FEATURES

1. Cracking Commentary: this explains how the creative team samples other films to capture the genre - a horror movie - whilst keeping in mind that the overall intention of the film is comic. They also explain how they set up the characters of Wallace and Gromit as pictures on the wall, allowing for the fact that some people abroad may not know the characters as well as they do in the UK. There is also fascinating information about the process of storyboarding and how to allow for the fact that Wallace is essentially infected and later cured.

2. Deleted Scenes: some of the scenes that the editor re-thought, or were removed, due to the run time and to speed up the action.

3. The History Of Wallace And Gromit: a history of the two from the early days when Nick Park was a student, studying animation, and he approached Peter Sallis to voice Wallace, having heard him on Last Of The Summer Wine. We also learn how many of Gromit's expressions are generated from his very communicative eyebrows.

4. Behind The Scenes Of The Were-Rabbit: an absorbing piece of film about how the sets are built and the film is put together.

5. A Day In The Life Of Aardman: a fascinating look at the different departments that go to make up Aardman animation. We see how the film is put together through the eyes/hands/talents of each of the people who makes it happen, from storyboarder, to artist voicing the character, from modeller to set designer.

6. How To Build A Bunny: a wonderful look at how to create a bunny through the eyes of one of the senior modellers. This is also in the DWK section, although it is not broken up here, as it is in the DWK.

7. The Family Album: this shows signs from the film and some of the storyboards.

8. Trailers: Madagascar, Shrek 2, A Shark's Tale, Nanny McPhee

Disc 2 features the following:

1. The Making Of The Were-Rabbit: an absolutely spell-binding piece of film about how they created the were-rabbit from the complicated armatures to the fabric that they had to source from the US to allow for a four way stretch so that the creature can move realistically.

2. Cracking Contraptions: this features a short film about each of Wallace's daft inventions, which is worth buying the DVD for alone. I laughed my head off at all the marvellous gags, particularly at my favourite, The Snoozatron, in which Gromit dons a sheep's costume and is bounced up and down on a trampoline so that Wallace can count sheep in order to go to sleep at night. It includes: The Soccamatic The Tellyscope The Autochef The Snoozatron The Turbo Diner The Bully Proof Vest The 525 Crackervac The Christmas Cardomatic The Snomanotron Shopper 13

3. The Amazing World Of Wallace And Gromit: looks at how far they have come, beginning, as it does, having them filmed for the cover of a US magazine, probably Time, and tracing their history with the help of Nick Park.

4. Stage Fright: a short, brilliantly inventive, cartoon about Tich and his amazing juggling dogs and how they and their friend, the actress, thwart the over-wheening bad cheese (dare I say it, a Stinking Bishop - borrowing liberally from the Curse of the Were-Rabbit) who scraps variety and stars in the movies himself, with the help of the dogs, who have been trained by Tich, but whom he never credits. The "actor" comes to a satisfyingly bad end, whilst Tich overcomes his stage fright and steps out into the real world with his girlfriend.

Both DVD discs have subtitles.