Wallace and his sidekick face off with some rabbits

The factory might have gone up in smoke, but not the fun. Nick Park's thoroughly delightful Wallace and Gromit animation -- his first full-length feature with these characters -- mixes the pizzazz of co-producers DreamWorks with the gentle English talent of a Roy Clarke, or Ronnie Barker's alter ego Gerald Wiley, or even Alan Bennett. It's a lovely family film packed with cheeky gags and buoyant fun, like the best-ever Bumper Holiday edition of the Beano, with the merest hint of Viz. The script, co-written by Nick Park with Steve Box, Bob Baker and Mark Burton, is a model of high-IQ comedy writing, and every scene and every frame is crafted with flair.

Wallace, of course, is the doughty north-country cheese-enthusiast, lovingly voiced by Peter Sallis, who lives in a small town with his faithful hound Gromit. They are making their living running a firm called Anti-Pesto. Wallace and Gromit cruise around in a homely van rounding up the rabbits who are devastating the locals' precious vegetables, with which they are hoping to win prizes at the annual fete.

Rabbit-related emergencies trigger an alarm at Wallace and Gromit's command centre. Each of their clients has a portrait whose eyes flash in a crisis, like the pictures of the Tracy family. Wallace and Gromit then slide down elaborate chutes to their vehicle, in fine action-hero style, and get stuck into the situation, caring for nothing but helping the community. But Wallace has red blood flowing in his Plasticine veins, and he wouldn't be human -- or rather quasi-human -- if he didn't have feelings for his distinguished and beautiful client Lady Tottington, voiced by Helena Bonham Carter. She has a serious rabbit infestation on her magnificent estate and Wallace is able to use his hi-tech rabbit vacuum pump to remove the beasts without cruelty.

His success with the bunnies enrages Lady Tottington's long-term suitor -- the villainous and splendidly named Victor Quartermaine, who is a hardcore field-sports man and believes in letting rabbits have it with both barrels. Victor is terrifically voiced by Ralph Fiennes, showing a hitherto rather underdeveloped talent for comedy. Clearly a terrible showdown is on the cards between Victor and Wallace. But have these romantic passions, heaving in Wallace's noble and manly breast, unlocked the beast in him? It is time for the film's cheerfully surreal moment of metaphorical madness. In order to cure the captured rabbits of their greedy ways, Wallace hooks them up to his most controversial invention: a machine for sucking inappropriate thoughts out of brains. The experiment goes horribly haywire, and he gets connected to the rabbits' minds, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. And when scudding clouds disclose a full moon of an evening, Wallace's ears start sprouting and pink fluffy hair forms on the backs of his hands. The resulting horror is filtered through Gromit's drolly watchful presence.