Chicken Run

Chicken Run is a surprise gem that, while certainly still seen today as a very solid movie, don’t entirely release how much of an impact it left on the world at the time of its release. Being released in the year 2000 under DreamWorks production (when they were still a relatively fletching studio trying to find the space in the animation world) and being made by British studio company Aardman Animations, who are mostly known for their very impressive stop-motion short films mainly the Wallace and Gromit series, Chicken Run was incredibly well received by critic, becoming DreamWorks’ highest grossing film as of yet with $227.8 million (before Shrek came along a year later and took that mantle) and the highest grossing stop-motion film of all time, allowing DreamWorks the confidence to say that they could stand up against the animation heavy-hitter like Disney. With talks of a sequel coming in the near future, it only makes sense to return to this interesting little film. Life on Tweedy’s Chicken Farm is a constant battle for survival as all the chickens are forced to lay eggs for the farmers, Mr, and Mrs Tweedy (voiced by Tony Haygrath and Miranda Richardson) until they can no longer sustain themselves and turn into a roast dinner. While a chicken named Ginger (voiced by Julia Sawalha) continually tries to find a way to escape the confines of this chicken coup, all of these attempts fail as it seems near impossible to transport every chicken out of this pen undetected. When things start to look even more grim once Mrs Tweedy decides to start making chicken pies to boast her minuscule profits, a literal miracle appears before Ginger as she sees an American rooster seemingly fly over the pen, before crashing landing in the yard. The cockerel of question named Rocky (voiced by Mel Gibson) is a runaway circus chicken who, after some persuasion (and blackmail) from Ginger, decides to teach the chickens how to fly in exchange for not being turned into the circus. With time running out with the pie machine up and running, the race is on for the chickens to escape as free birds and not wrapped in pastry. Being Aardman Animations first feature length film and one of two films that they would do with DreamWorks in the near future (the other being Flushed Away in 2006) this film was a pretty impressive first outing that stood out amongst other animated films at the time, taking a lot of what people like from their style and adding more on top of it with memorable characters, good writing and a pretty intense atmosphere and premise. The film is plagued with some cliched plot lines and a few unpolished elements, but otherwise, not a bad film to look back on.

The first and most interesting element about this film is that it originally started off as a spoof of the famous 1963 war escape movie, The Great Escape, and even thought that element was eventually scrapped in exchange for being more of their own thing, that original idea and energy can still be felt when watching it currently. With the obvious visual connections, the story direction, the hostile environment, even the musical score has so many elements that feel like direct homages to that film, yet the drastically different time periods, location and style allows these elements to not interfere with the film. With its unique premise and surprisingly bleak and oppressive atmosphere, the film’s concept is incredibly strong, especially for a kid’s movie. This is something that DreamWorks originally thrived at in comparison to other animated studios, with their films often veering more towards adults than children yet still containing all the components that could appeal to kids, making them the best of both worlds (for the most part). The idea of a group of chickens trying to escape a prison-like chicken farm before they are turned into pies is so surreal from a writing standpoint yet is made very engaging due to surprisingly high levels of stakes present throughout the movie, which allows the audience to feel massively more invested in the characters and their turmoil because of it. It’s a film that certainly has its lighter moments and comedic slapstick, but there’s a strong feel of intense atmosphere that does a good job grounded what could’ve been nothing but a silly homage to classic film. Even with this refreshingly cool but harshly dark premise, the film already has this wonderful British atmosphere that is both human and off-putting in just the right amount where it can be both realistic and unrealistic at the same time. The film is pretty well paced, with each moment escalating on top of the other and continuing to build the suspense as the ticking time bomb for when all of them could die is a continual issue throughout the film. With that said, while the premise for the film, created by the film’s directors and co-founders of Aardman, Nick Park and Peter Lord, is a lot of fun and has a great hook on it, it’s also home to a fair number of clichés linked within. They are pretty harmless and lead the story in a nice direction, but some like the liar reveal and the romance do not add much to the story and only seem to slow it down.

The characters for the film have a similar feel to many other British comedies, dramas and especially with regards to Wallace and Gromit. A lot of the main cast of characters are very memorable and very well acted, helped out by the good character writing, distinct designs, and stand-out moments within the film. Much like how it would operate in a traditional prison film (it’s hilarious putting this film within that category), you have a list of slightly cartoonish characters that often exhibit a dominant trait that helps them stand apart and will in no doubt assist in the eventual break-out later in the film, and due to this film being a literal cartoon, it can go all the way with this idea and it results in some pretty memorable characters.  Ginger is a pretty good lead; a character of conviction and strength, but with fleeting confidence that constantly hounds her, a good leading figure, good voice performance and good overall lead role. Mel Gibson also does a pretty decent job as the other lead character, though the direction his character takes a little generic and not the most surprising. People like Jane Horrocks, Imelda Staunton, and Lynn Ferguson as fellow chickens are good and likeable and help to add this warmth and connective tissue that really helps to make the audience want to see them get out, the pair of mice voiced by Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels add a uniquely wry change of pace to the humor of the film, and Benjamin Whitrow as the character of Fowler could come across as a one-note stick-in-the-mud, yet he is allowed to be well-rounded and he even gets some pretty funny lines as well, he’s a very well handled character. The villains of the movie have their ups and downs. While the antagonizing force of this film being farmers is a smart choice and the combo of a terrifying wife and a bumbling husband is a nice pairing, there is not a lot more to take from them outside of their one gimmicks. Mrs Tweedy is pretty intimidating, and she definitely makes for a far more entertaining threat, but Mr Tweedy gets old after a while (even though he gets a good line every once and a while).

The animation style is of course the usual stop-motion styling of the Aardman Animations company, and as always, it is great to see. The massive sets, the various character designs, the large models, and open locations, it’s always impressive to watch and you can always feel the massive amounts of effort that no doubt went into making this movie. There is a worry with stop-motion that could be a little too slow and restricted to realistic movements that it would get in the way of the comedic slapstick, but thankfully the slapstick within the film is still quick enough that it doesn’t feel too slow and that matched with the more impressively quick dialogue balances things out well enough. The film also has really good mood setting as well, with the lighting and coloration of several scenes really managing to portray the way a character is dealing with something. There’s a lot of harsh shadows and overwhelming darkness in several scenes, but the daytime scenes are effectively bright and colorful, it has a level of shading that probably hadn’t been seen by Aardman before this picture. The writing for the film by screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick is pretty good and is honestly much funnier than many other Aardman projects. Aardman have always been visually creative and can be likeable obscure, but they aren’t known for knee-slappers, and while this movie isn’t extremely inventive with its humor, it is handled well and allows for some pretty good visual and verbal gags that work for both kids and adults. While this abundance of jokes can be very different to the normal format and tone of Wallace and Gromit which relied more on a chilled environment and passive nature to offset its crazier components, with this that matches its crazy scenario with a lot more active comedy (a touch different but helpful for this film). The score for the film by John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams as mentioned before, has a sound and uses instrumentation very similar to the score from The Great Escape, but despite the obvious it does still manage to be its own thing with a slightly more enthused energy that matches the cartoony nature of the story more.

As a whole, Chicken Run is a pretty delightful surprise from both companies, delivering an imaginative, entertaining, and surprisingly intense film that continued on DreamWorks unique filmmaking personality (until Shrek would dilute it a touch later on) and Aardman got a bit more well-known outside of the UK. While it’s true that the film maybe could have used a few more interesting elements within its story to avoid more of its clichés and maybe fleshed out its villains a bit more, with a great premise, likeable characters, impressive visuals, and some good jokes here and there, the film is a worthwhile viewing. Go back and relive those memories before the next film comes out, Chicken Run is a surprisingly tense but predominantly British movie.