Entertaining if a little disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (20 June 2000)

Being a fan of Wallace and Grommit, I saw Chicken Run at a sneak preview showing. I had high hopes for Chicken Run to live up to the quality and entertainment value of Wallace and Grommit. I was a little disappointed.
The plot centers around a group of chickens trying to escape from a farm and live free away from the threat of being slaughtered by the Farmer's wife. It seems like a good premise for a movie--and it was entertaining. If you're expecting something as delightful as Wallace and Grommit you will be a little disappointed, for a few reasons.
The plotting seems a little worn in the middle sections of the movie in which the chickens are stiiiill trying to figure out how to escape after spending an hour of the movie on the problem already. At the showing I went to, I actually heard someone around me snoring as they nodded off to sleep during the middle of the movie. Most of the children in the audience also seemed bored and restless by the middle. I think the makers were trying to stretch a not-quite-feature-length script into a feature length script and didn't know quite how to write a longer-form story.
Fortunately, the last 10 minutes of the movie picked up and ended in energetic, entertaining and clever Wallace and Grommit style.
Don't get me wrong, this is still a fun movie to watch--just don't expect the same standard as Wallace and Grommit where there are many clever details, turns and twists to keep you interested the whole way through.
It also misses some of the charm of the incredibly strong charactarization and detail work(such as the Penguin) from Wallace and Grommit. The characters are fairly cookie-cutter children's movie, cliche, Disney-like characters. You don't get the unexpected and entertaining that Nick Park has delivered in the past.
If you don't even know who Wallace and Grommit are, go see Chicken Run since it's at least as good as most recent Disney cartoon movies.
If you're a Wallace and Grommit fan, you'll probably want to see it also, just don't expect quite as high a standard as Nick Park's previous work has lead you to expect.
I give it a 7 out of 10--which is a moderately good review for me since I don't generally give most movies much over a 6 unless I like them reasonably well.