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Apparently this film's creators didn't bring back certain key actors from the original film for fear of controversial pasts and "old" sounding voices. If that's true, and despite whether it would've hurt or not, they worried about the wrong thing. The creators should've been more concerned with the subpar writing and directing that makes this film unwatchable a 2nd time and keeps it out of my Aardman collection.

I give the animation and cinematography at least a 9 out of 10. Visually, it meets expectation. I give the story concept and voice acting at least a 7. It's sort of a typical tale of a teen rebelling against parent wishes, but at least told in a worthwhile way, and stays consistent with the action and characters to the end. The replacement voice actors do a decent job, imo. They're not as good and sometimes go through the motions (even the return actors), but they sound similar enough and don't botch it.

From those angles, this wouldn't be a bad sequel. However, everything else is well below standard for Aardman. It lacks wit, heart, originality and personality. Most jokes are straightforward, flat, overtly juvenile and overdone at times. Some of the music, additional voices and sounds do not flow. They sound cheaply done and formulaic.

It's as if the film's creators had no sense of what made people like the original film or any of the Wallace & Gromit catalogue. As if they expected to have an entirely new, unaware audience to depend on. One that didn't need to see the first film and is made up of easily-impressed 10 year-olds or moms whose film appreciation runs entirely through a kid-only, G-rated filter. There's nothing wrong with G-rated, but this effort abandoned every adult fan with a sense of humor, who appreciates subtlety and creativity - the way Aardman used to "craft" a film.

I literally only laughed at one brief scene. I rewound it a couple times because it was reminiscent of the original film. The scene involves Rocky suggesting a rescue plan that lacks plan, then Bunty and Mac give him grief over it. Mac makes a hilarious analogy which is made even funnier by her Scottish brogue.

I also thought "Reginald" was a redeeming character and played reasonably well by Peter Serafinowicz. But that was it. Nothing else stood out about this film other than how much it didn't stand out. Like someone else noted, I wanted to like this. I knew 20 minutes into that it was not going to be "great" but I watched to the end with hopes that it would at least finish "good." However, it is only just "okay" on a good day. To me, if you're going to make this effort 23 years later, why not make a proper effort?

I'm also baffled by how many reviewers "understand" why Gibson wasn't recalled. He had a degree of detractors even when he did the original film. He's still a viable and good actor today, and has been churning out films the past 3-4 years, including six in 2022. Most are rubbish, but he had a few good films and spectacular performances in the past decade.

This is an outstanding film - plain and simple. I gave it a 10 mostly for it's scope, acting, qualitative value and completeness of the story. It's not flawless, but it's close, for me. I used to be an avid movie-goer who avoids theaters now for the lack of such films. Though it's not perfect, on my harshest day I could not go less than a 9.5 if that were available. So, what in the world did critics expect when they watched this film and treated like a b-budget movie with campy acting and a low grade script?

The "normal" people reviews here clarify the details so I will say no more about that. Instead, I take this moment to question the professional critics and take my conspiracy theory hat for a stroll.

Many film-goers have taken a disliking to critics for years. Nothing new. But there has been a slow corruption (an agenda, if you will) that I've suspected for years, and this film pretty much seals the deal for me. The likes of Leonard Maltin and the old newspaper reviewers clearly had generational and attitudinal biases toward certain cultures. Then the duo acts like Siskel and Ebert created theater and gimmicks out of disingenuous antagonism and debate. After the advent of the Internet came IMDB, Amazon and other online review sites, followed by techie bias and algorithm hijacks that warped the raw data. (If you could see the entire history of Top rated films, you'd know what I mean.) It didn't take long for academia and media worlds to align with that.

So, when I see "professional" critics make the comments they do today, I have to wonder what agenda they're pushing. I've long-questioned some of the media reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes. I wonder what qualifies them to give such biased reviews that seem to highlight their grasp for snarky lines more than their grasp of the purpose and fundamentals of film and story.

Do yourself a favor - ignore the so-called "critic" clowns and watch this film for what it is - a slice of reality and real history, embellished for entertainment. But use common sense and self-honesty in your expectations. Don't expect dramas to make you laugh or comedies to be action-packed. If these "critics" truly believe their reviews, that is likely their only possible excuse - ignorance.

If not for RiffTrax, I'd never attempt to see a film like this. Their commentary truly gets one through it, but also repeatedly reminds me that trusting my instincts on films has always been a good idea.

To put it perspective this is a year AFTER The Matrix and the same year as Gladiator and Snatch. The worst film I intentionally saw in 2000 was Charlie's Angels. I rated that a 5 for the same reason someone here rated this a 7. As vapid as Charlie's Angels and its storyline was, at least it had big name actors and hot actresses, and actual ACTION.

My goodness, in the year 2000 this film could not have picked a worse bunch of lead actors for bad guys. BRC was bad enough yet he was quite decent and appealing compared to most of the remaining cast. It was like they wanted to make sure the star looked good by picking worse-acting bad guys and a completely unimaginative film location. Wow!

The production quality, filming style, acting, directing and story content were all at the level of a late 80s, early 90s made-for-TV movie - but in the year 2000! I gave it a 2 because it did have a couple decent actors and the storyline was at least mildly plausible and stayed on track. I've seen worse films. Like, maybe 5 or 6. :-/