I
can't really say that I was hyped for this movie at all. I
didn't expect to go see it. But when I did it went beyond all my
expectations. Chicken Run is from the creators of Wallace
& Gromit and as everyone should know, it was done all
from clay. While Wallace & Gromit were mostly
30-minute movie segments, creators Peter Lord and Nick Park
created a feature-length movie, ultimately known as Chicken
Run. From a script by Karey Kirkpatrick, the story is mainly
about chickens trying to escape evil Mrs. Tweedy's farm,
ironically looking like a death camp. Chicken Run offers
some similarities to The Great Escape and Stalag 17,
mainly poking a little fun at them.
The
herd of chickens stationed in Coop 17 is lead by Ginger (Sawalha),
who seems to be the only chicken wanting to break out. But
whenever she does break out, Mr. Tweedy (Haygarth) throws her
into solitary confinement. Some of the other chicken characters
are: Baba (Horrocks), not the smart one of them all, but
believes that whenever Ginger is not among them she's on
holiday, which serves as a funny running gag. There's Fowler (Whitrow),
a former RAF rooster, who survived the good old days of
fighting. There are several others, but they didn't stand out as
much as the two characters above.
One
day, when Ginger is walking the farm, she hears screaming from
the skies. It comes from a chicken flying through the air, to be
only brought down after hitting a wind pole. And so she meets
Rocky the Rooster (Gibson). After seeing how he could fly,
Ginger believes there is a way out. She wants Rocky to teach
flying to all the chickens. But as it is, chickens just weren't
born to be airborne, which Ginger realizes after a tragic
encounter with Rocky's real identity. But that's later in the
film.
Mrs.
Tweedy is tired of being short of money so she buys a machine
which, if you put in chickens, pies will come out. This gives
all the chicken's the real motivation to break out. I mean, who
would want to end up as pies? No one. And so they hatch out a
plan to escape the farm, which requires them to work hard
without the help of Rocky, who 'chickened' out of it. The entire
story of this film is very original and well thought-out,
although the middle drags for about a half hour. This is all
clay and moviegoers haven't really gotten exposed to a movie
like this before.
Chicken
Run seems to appeal mainly to kids and their parents, when in fact
it appeals to people in their 20s and 30s as well, or so I
believe. I did appeal to me somehow, as I didn't care a lot for
this movie before I actually went to see it. Kids might have
trouble identifying with the serious tone that lies within this
film, however, they should get some of the jokes, which were
mostly sarcastic (I think). What makes Chicken
Run good
is that you come to care for the chickens and what happens to
them. All things considered, Chicken
Run makes for a great family film. Take your kids out. Take
your friend out. Or if worse comes to worse, take your
grandparents. Overall, this is a movie I didn't expect a lot
from, but was surprised how really cute it actually was.
