Chicken Run

B-

I've been looking forward to this one since it came out. "The Wrong Trousers," by the same people, really surprised me when I stumbled across it on PBS one day. I like the way the creators honor traditional film making elements (a jewel thief, chase scenes, escapes, etc.) but add to them. There were so many things going on in "The Wrong Trousers" that it took watching it a couple of times to catch everything. Could this intensity be maintained across a feature-length film? Well, not really. Making a stop-action movie like this is incredibly painstaking. But I think they were overwhelmed by the mechanics of getting the minutes done rather than languishing in all the quirks.

Okay, so what does that mean? A lot of the production values are better in Chicken Run, but the richness is missing. There are a few subtle sight gags and background jokes, but not enough. Still, it's a pretty good movie. It's about a bunch of chickens trying to escape from a chicken farm and borrows heavily from Stalag 17 and The Great Escape and any other World War II P.O.W. movie. But the movie mostly rotates around 3 chickens: the never-say-die schemer and leader, her loyal geeky assistant, and a big-talking American rooster who drops in from the blue. But, for the most part, the characters are never really well-developed and for the most part all of the other chickens are interchangeable. I think they could have used more distinct personalities. It might have helped to have had several chickens who were good at different things rather than just the one ringleader.

Nonetheless it was enjoyable and there are some cute scenes with the chickens trying to learn to fly and hiding out from the farmers. There are a couple of good jokes, in particular when a chicken tries to barter with mice but all she has to offer is, literally, chicken feed. But it leaves me wondering why they never had a line about having "flown the coop".

Could have been better. I'll give it a B-.

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