A Dark Horse (Chicken?) Triumph

Rating: 9/10 (30 December 2000)

While many movies like "The Perfect Storm" floundered as solid entertainment vehicles, "Chicken Run" provided safe harbor as a candid, non-assuming, original, and often hilarious film hatched out of Aardman Studios. Using elements from POW movies like "The Great Escape" and "Stalag 17", with Hitchcockian accents thrown here and there, this movie focuses on a group of chickens seeking escape before their goose is cooked (or to be more accurate, turned into a pie). The excruciatingly-worked animation rivals the magic spun by computer-generated images, with many keen details worked into the sets and nuances of each character's expression. There's humor, suspense, love, and triumph for movie-goers of every age, and I'm plucked dry to think of any comparable work that offers so much for admission.
Performances are excellently matched from voice to animated character: Mel Gibson gives a tongue-in-beak performance as Rocky, the American rooster , and Miranda Richardson is diabolically charming as the ill-spirited Mrs. Tweedy. Kudos also to Julia Sawalha as Ginger, the leader of the chicken squad, and Benjamin Whitrow as Fowler, the stodgy RAF rooster who presides - with questionable authority - over the chicken farm.
An incredibly fun, inventive, and charming movie from start to finish.