Year:
2000
Studio:
Dreamworks SKG/Aardman Animations
Movie:
3/5
DVD:
3/5
Teaser
Life at the Tweedy chicken farm is boring. The chickens lay their eggs,
the eggs are taken by the Tweedys to be sold, underperforming chickens
are axed. Well, that's not good enough for one chicken. Ginger (Julia
Sawaltha) dreams of getting all the chickens out and leading them to
paradise. But escape attempt after escape attempt fails. Until Rocky
(Mel Gibson) flies into camp and changes everyone's lives.
Movie
Aardman
Animations is best known for its claymation shorts. Their Wallace and
Gromit series are classics and most everyone in the US has seen their
Chevron commercials (the ones with the claymation talking cars). For
their first feature film they chose a simple concept: a World War II
style prison escape with chickens.
Ginger has the Steve McQueen rebel/escape artist/leader role. Mac (Lynn
Ferguson) is the Scottish engineer, Babs (Jane Horrocks) is the
not-smart chicken who means well, Bunty (Imelda Staunton) is the
doubting opposition, Fowler (Benjamin Whitrow) is the old RAF Veteran
rooster, Fetcher (Phil Daniels) and Nick (Timothy Spall) are the rat
scroungers forever looking for eggs, and Rocky is the suave Yankee
chicken that drops into camp.
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The animation
is amazing. Stop-motion filming means that in almost every frame
everything is still, which means that everything is crystal clear.
Aardman Animations have been doing claymations for decades and at this
point they're probably the best in the world. It's amazing how much
work went into moving all the characters.
DVD
Peter Lord and Nick Park provide the audio commentary. There is a
20-minute "Making of Chicken Run" featurette and a 15-minute "The
Hatching of Chicken Run" featurette. Theatrical trailer, production
notes, cast and crew bios are also included. There is a Read-Along
which is kind of like Chicken Run made into a children's read-along
book.
Recommendations
All in all, Chicken Run is an
enjoyable comedic movie suitable for kids. I think most people will
enjoy this harmless comedy. What I liked: the animation, the WWII
theme, the little in-joles. What I didn't like: the movie is aimed at a
younger audience so at times it was a bit slow moving and boring.
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