Today’s quick review: Chicken Run. A plucky hen named Ginger leads her fellow chickens to freedom from the farm where they are kept prisoner. Escape seems out of reach until Rocky, a brash circus rooster voiced by Mel Gibson, crash lands in the farm. Ginger strongarms him into teaching the hens how to fly, unaware that his meteoric flight into the henhouse was the result of a circus cannon and not Rocky’s own two wings. But their efforts to escape become a race against time when the couple that owns the farm decides that chicken pies are more profitable than eggs. Now they only have until the pie machine is complete to fly the coop, a challenge that just might be impossible after all.
Chicken Run is a stop-motion comedy from the creators of Wallace and Gromit. The premise is simple: The Great Escape with chickens and henhouses. Ginger has all the single-minded determination one could hope for in the heroine of an escape film. But if Ginger is focused and serious, her compatriots are anything but. The other hens are simple-minded, easily distracted, and insensate of the danger they are in. Rocky is a womanizer and an opportunist, more interested in wooing the henhouse than helping him escape. The characters play well off each other, with Rocky exploiting the hens’ gullibility and Ginger struggling to keep everyone on track.
The execution of the film is very good. The explicit Great Escape parodies are inspired. The chickens’ reactions (and nonreactions) to various setbacks lead to a number of Wallace and Gromit-like beats. The chicken-scale props are quite clever. And to round it all off, there’s a healthy dose of sight gags and chicken puns. The film is backed by a catchy orchestral score that works just as well for the film’s light-hearted sense of adventure as it does for the film’s more serious moments. (The soundtrack is also one of the few movie soundtracks to use kazoos effectively.) Overall, Chicken Run is a great choice if you’re looking for a light, up-tempo movie with a bit of heart. Give it a shot if you’re a fan of Wallace and Gromit or the Muppets. 7.0 out of 10 on IMDB.