fun animated tale

Rating: Null/10 (16 December 2000)

Though not on a level with `Toy Story 2,' DreamWorks' animated hit `Chicken Run' provides enough originality of concept and expertise of execution to score as fun, high-spirited entertainment for the whole family. Borrowing heavily from the 1963 classic `The Great Escape,' `Chicken Run' cleverly envisions a British poultry farm as a barbed-wired camp in which a group of animated hens and one retired RAF rooster are trapped in a life of hopeless, egg-producing servitude. When the owners of the farm decide to up their profits by converting their operation to a chicken pie manufacturing plant, Ginger, the feisty, levelheaded hen who harbors visions of a glorious life beyond the confines of this hellish prison, decides it is time for the ladies to band together and find a way to escape once and for all. Meanwhile, into their lives drops Rocky the Flying Rooster, a wisecracking American circus performer whose head is easily turned by the attention such a singular stud naturally receives from a coop full of love-starved females. Together, these unlikely heroes and heroines plan and scheme their big break, encountering various setbacks and thwarting multitudinous dangers along the way.
As a piece of animation, `Chicken Run' is truly outstanding. Opting for traditional animated puppetry rather than drawn cel animation or even computer-generated graphics, the creators of `Wallace and Gromit' (Peter Lord and Nick Park) do a remarkable job of creating an assortment of characters whose movements are fluid and whose appearance borders on the surrealistic. In short, these are not `realistic' looking chickens - all the better to enhance the otherworldly quality of the film's setting. The carefully crafted sets and backgrounds represent a similar triumph in the areas of attention to detail and establishment of mood. The movie is, quite simply, a joy to look at from beginning to end, and it is gratifying to know that filmmakers can buck the recent trend towards full scale computer animation and still produce a film that looks this impressive.
Just as important, Karey Kirkpatrick has provided a script filled with clever one-liners, finding just the right balance of acerbic wit and heartwarming sentiment. In addition, every single voice, including Mel Gibson's as Rocky, sounds perfectly right in the context of the character assigned to it.
If there is a bit of a flaw in `Chicken Run,' it probably lies in the fact that the story itself is not quite as fresh or original as the technological accoutrements used to put it across. In terms of sophistication, the tale itself sometimes seems to be lagging behind the eye-popping visuals and the ear-tickling dialogue. Still, this is a minor quibble about a film that works so well on so many levels. `Chicken Run' may not be one of the great works of animation, but it certainly stands as one of the best such films of recent times.