After breaking in their act in several hilarious shorts -- two won Oscars -- and a TV series, Wallace and Gromit get their very own feature film in "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." Wallace, of course, is that cheerful but daft inventor extraordinaire and Gromit is his silent though sage canine, who quietly cleans up his master's disasters. Most fans of the U.K.-based Aardman Animations' magical claymation technique think of these two as the studio's best creations. They certainly live up to that reputation in "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit."

Aardman's first feature for DreamWorks, "Chicken Run" in 2000, didn't completely manage the trick of maintaining the laughs and stylish glee of its shorts in a film nearly three times their length. The studio now hits its stride in a second outing, displaying the same technical flair, wonderful British wit and a sharper story sense. Since "Curse" is both a family movie and a date movie, DreamWorks should enjoy a long theatrical run followed by a lively ancillary afterlife.

This adventure is scripted by the two co-directors, Steve Box and Nick Park, along with Bob Baker and Mark Burton. Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) & Gromit run a humane extermination company called Anti-Pesto, which collects rabbits savaging vegetable patches in a comfy British suburb and brings them back to the house. (The basement is getting rather overrun by rabbits, the truth be told.)

Anti-Pesto faces its greatest challenge when a monster rabbit devours patch after patch in the days leading up to the annual Giant Vegetable Competition, sponsored by Lady Tottington (an aristocratically bubbly Helena Bonham Carter). The team must also outwit the blustery Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes in a delightfully over-the-top caricature), who means to kill the monster rabbit with a gold bullet, a 24-carat one. (The Aardman crew is truly addicted to puns.)

Then the unthinkable happens: Wallace & Gromit meet the enemy and it is . Wallace? Yes, in a foolish attempt to rehab rabbits from their desire for veggies in his laboratory, things went horribly wrong. Now, when the moon comes out, Wallace transforms into the Were-Rabbit in a delightful sequence that captures the best of claymation.

Park and Box can now spoof all the old monster movies, everything from werewolves to King Kong himself. From here on the movie rolls merrily along with slapstick action and whimsical characters. And always there's Gromit working feverishly to prevent disaster after disaster.

Julian Nott's jolly music with its mock epic swells just barely keeps up with the breakneck pace, one-liners and jokey signs that fly by too fast for the eye to catch every one.

Considering what a rousing critical and box-office success England's Aardman Animations had with its 2000 debut feature, "Chicken Run," the company sure has taken its time coming up with a follow-up: "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit."

Was it worth the five-year wait? You bet. The first full-length adventure of the Claymation studio's two-time, animated-short Oscar winners -- for "The Wrong Trousers" in '93 and "A Close Shave" in '95 -- is total fun from start to finish.

The premise is silly and thin, and there's nothing profound about what's happening on or below the surface. But it's as cute as a bug, and, like "Chicken Run," it's so devoid of the usual coarse Hollywood calculation that it plays like a breath of fresh air.

The story finds cheese-loving inventor Wallace (voice of Peter Sallis) and his mouthless pup, Gromit, running a pest-control business mainly aimed at corralling -- in a humane manner -- the rabbits that plague the local citizens' beloved pea patches.

But when Wallace tries some of his weird science on one of the captured bunnies, something goes very wrong and, before you can say Lon Chaney, a gigantic were-rabbit is rampaging through the Midlands and gobbling up the garden goodies whenever the moon is bright.

Thus, our heroes must stop the monster, with the help of Lady Campanula Tottington (voice of Helena Bonham Carter), sponsor of the area's annual vegetable show, and opposition of Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes), a genocidal bunny hunter out for slaughter.

"Were-Rabbit" actually was Aardman's second choice for its second feature, after a "Tortoise & Hare" project had to be abandoned. And fans may recall that director Nick Park once expressed fears that the W&G premise may not be substantial enough to support a feature.

To be honest, the movie does feel slighter than "Chicken Run" -- more like a featurette padded to feature length. And the uninitiated may find it confusing, since it assumes our knowledge of the W&G shorts and offers no real exposition of its characters.

Even so, and even though the movie doesn't stay with you for long, it's completely ingratiating. The plot is whimsically charming and the goofy Plasticine characters -- with their toothy faces, beady eyes and hammy hands -- are irresistible.

As always with Aardman (which makes its films in Bristol, far from the madding crowd in London and Hollywood), there's something magically, eccentrically, old-school British about the film: It's as fluffy and innocent as its bunny villains.

It's also a testament to its technology. Coming on the heels of "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride," the film is more evidence that the painstaking process of stop- motion animation offers a high-touch advantage that the computer just can't match.