Top of the pecking order

Rating: Null/10 (20 October 2001)

Rarely does a children's movie slice through moral ambiguity to empower our young ones with real values. Standing up for what is right takes courage. Failure is wholly acceptable, giving up is not. Caring for one another shows character. The fight for freedom is an honourable and worthy pursuit. All this and more makes Chicken Run, an 84-minute kiddies chronicle of comedic shenanigans, a modern classic.
Ginger is a chicken who is not happy with the established order of things. After a succession of failed attempts to better her own - and those of her friends - lot in life, the fortuitous arrival of Rocky the rooster may provide the solution they have desperately been seeking. But the evil Mrs. Tweedy has plans of her own. Beyond the profitless subsistence of egg farming lays the boundless financial gain of chicken pie production! Time has run out as the chickens make one last, frantic bid for freedom.
As an amateur clay animator I have some idea of the technical issues faced by the creators of Chicken Run. Believe me when I say it's a time consuming process - even with the instant feedback provided by computers. I started learning the process some 12 years ago with nothing more than an 8mm film camera and a desire to understand the magic. Though technology has improved the production process of claymation' the methods have, more or less, remained the same. Aardman Animations (Wallace and Gromit, Creature Comforts, Rex The Runt, and others) lead the field by applying knowledge, skill, patience and innovation to all their projects. From humble beginnings with Morph from Vision On (a programme specifically for hearing impaired children) they have - slowly - produced an outstanding body of work. Chicken Run is currently the pinnacle of their efforts and deserves its place as cock of the walk (and I almost made it to the end of this review without cracking a pun almost).