Chicken Run
reviewed by Christopher Lyon
Yes, I know this is a G-rated “kid’s movie.” But if you’re any kind of a fan of animation, “Wallace and Gromit,” or chickens—you will want to see this film.
Nick Parks is the British animator behind the Academy Award®-winning “Wallace and Gromit” series. His creations are made using something called plasticine, and they’re commonly referred to a “claymation.” The process involves stop-motion photography. That means that you set up your characters, take a picture, move your characters just a fraction of an inch, take another picture, and so on. When you put all the pictures together, you get a true moving picture show.
Maybe you’ve tried this yourself at home. You can accomplish the same effect using a good video camera. If you have played around with stop-motion, you know how tedious the process can be. On a good day, one animator may produce three to four seconds of film.
“Chicken Run,” made over the span of four years, involved 150 animators in the back-breaking work of making hundreds of chickens talk, dance, run, and (maybe) fly. It’s no coincidence that, as a teenager, Parks worked in a chicken processing factory to earn money for a good Super-8 movie camera. He obviously gained some compassion for his product.
I describe all of this technical stuff because it’s amazing how often you forget you’re watching clay figures on a tiny set while engrossed in “Chicken Run.” Set in a prisoner-of-war-style egg farm in World War 2-era England, the movie follows the escape attempts of a bevy of plump hens. And for a kid’s movie, it’s actually kind of dark. Every time one of these cute, clay figures stops producing eggs, she gets taken to the chopping block and turned into the evening meal for the cruel owner of the farm and her dopey henchman/husband.
The head hen, Ginger, steps up her attempts to escape over, around, or under the barbed wire and snarling dogs with all the chickens when she learns that the egg farm is about to become a chicken pie factory. Enter Rocky (Mel Gibson) as an American “flying” chicken on the lamb—and Ginger is sure she’s found her ticket to out of the coop.
The movie is clever, funny, and quickly paced. Parks and the other writers hold onto the British sense of humor that make “Wallace and Gromit” so much fun, but they also play off of Mel Gibson’s American “hero.” And the action sequences are truly astounding when you remind yourself that it’s all done with clay.
“Chicken Run” is a movie you’ll like—and one you can take your parents and little siblings to, as well. As one reviewer said, “It’s poultry in motion.”