The Chicken Run

Stewart Says

What struck me most on leaving the cinema was “How did the American’s go for that?”.  Personally, I have always found Wallace and Gromit a touch twee.  There was something uniquely English and middleclass about Nick Park’s clay creations that I thought would have precluded them from any sort of international success.  This quality is still very much present in Aardman’s first big screen outing, The Chicken Run.

You may have heard how Nick Hornby’s book High Fidelity has been seamlessly adapted to a film set in the US.  By contrast the Chicken Run makes no attempt, apart from the “American”  Rocky Rooster (voiced by Australian Mel Gibson) to pander to it’s overseas viewers.

It is the “in jokes” and the clever references to classic films that provide the film’s most comical moments.  These add support to the argument that this is not a children’s film, after all how many children are familiar with the Great Escape’s Cooler King or the fact that Indiana Jones never loses his trademark Fedora.  Even these clever pastiches grow tiresome as the story reaches it’s climax.  One too many Star Trek reference produced an audible groan in the cinema.

Jeffery Katzenberg (the K in Dreamworks SKG) gave the greenlight for this film and the first big screen outing for Wallace and his cheese loving pet.  I can’t help but feel that without the SKG influence this would have made a fine one hour television programme that would have attracted decent ratings, in a Christmas slot, perhaps as a follow on from the Queen’s speech.

Expect The Chicken Run to surface on DVD in December.

Marc Says

Aardman animations bring their first full length feature to the screen in the shape of Chicken Run.

For those who haven’t heard of Aardman before they are the creators of Morph, Creature Comforts and most famously Wallace & Gromit.

As far as Wallace & Gromit go, A Grand Day Out bored me senseless. However, The Wrong Trousers & A Close Shave were I felt, a touch of class. Therefore, after seeing the hilarious trailer, I had high hopes.

The film tells the tale of chickens trying to escape from Tweedy Farm and after several failed attempts seek help from Rocky (Gibson) a flying rooster who lands injured in their yard.

Although Rocky can fly, he does not tell the chickens that he needs to be fired from a canon first.

The leader of the chickens Ginger (Sawalha), wants to believe in Rocky, however, he seems to be playing the chicks for fools.

The film starts off well parodying the Great Escape several times with Ginger being thrown into the coal shed (cooler) for her repeated escape attempts & at one point, she’s bouncing a baseball of the walls.

However, the movie soon slows down and certainly feels drawn out at 84 minutes. Despite there being a couple of further noteworthy scenes, one an Indiana Jones rip off within a pie machine and the final escape, this film is nothing to crow about.

More a movie for the kids, but it could have been so much more.

Marc Gunn