Living, breathing, singing, dancing clay chickens

Rating: 8/10 (21 July 2000)

Aardman had previously managed a stupendous feat in creating characters an audience would care about, just from little pieces of clay. Now, following on from the success of Wallace and Gromit they have done it again with a whole new, also inanimate, cast, which is pretty impressive. Aardman's triumph is in the sheer appeal of the chicken 'people' with their individual foibles and interactions. Okay, some of the jokes may be a bit clunky, the plot is fairly predictable and there is a little too much gazing at the stars, but they have conjured expressive and sympathetic characters that absorb the attention - unlike many current Hollywood liveaction pics. Added to this, the three great action set pieces are breathtaking and hilarious - and replacing Steve McQueen with a Yorkshire chicken must be an act of mad genius. Well done Aardman. Afterthought - if the chickens have lived all their lives on the farm, how come they all have different accents???