Imagine Mel Gibson playing the James Garner role in The Great Escape. Now, imagine Mel Gibson in feathers.
Also delightful in the cast are Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels as a pair of scrounging rats, Nick and Fetcher, who are able to procure anything the chickens need to make their escape; Lynn Ferguson as Mac, a hen whose Scottish dialect is so thick no one can understand her; Benjamin Whitrow as Wing Commander Fowler, the only chicken to fly with the RAF; and Jane Horrocks as Babs, another of the hen-pecking party.
If the film has any weaknesses, they are almost too trivial to mention. I thought the plot too brief at under eighty minutes, the film ending much too quickly. The plot is also too obvious in its structure, sometimes too easy to anticipate the characters' actions or the story line's next turns. And the ending is a bit too silly, too pat, and too sentimentalized after most of the harder-edged action that has gone before. But it is a family-oriented feature, after all, and there's a little something in it for all ages. One of the best lines, incidentally, comes from a hen just after being reprieved from death: "All my life flashed before me. It was quite boring."
Video:
As to the film's visual presentation, it, too, is excellent. The colors are remarkably rich, deep, and burnished for an animated feature. Like its purely computer-generated cartoon cousins, this clay-animation release has an almost three-dimensional quality about it, a depth of image that makes it seem all the more realistic and all the more beautiful. Color definition is also quite good, and there is little grain in the 1.74:1 widescreen DVD transfer.
Audio:
Choices for sound are Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS ES, and Dolby Surround. The DD 5.1 is clean and clear, but there is not a lot of range in the frequency or dynamic spectrum. There are a few good rear-channel effects, but mostly the sound is just unobtrusive, getting its job done with a minimum of bother.
Extras:
DreamWorks labels the disc a "Special Edition," so expect a few extras. There is an audio commentary with directors Peter Lord and Nick Park. There are two "eggsclusive" documentaries, one called "Poultry in Motion," twenty-one minutes long, taking us behind the scenes of the production design, and another called "The Hatching of Chicken Run," fifteen minutes long, with more of the same. Then, there's a "Read-Along Script" that might be fun for kids; a few "screaming chicken panic buttons" set about; very extensive cast and crew bios and filmographies; DVD-ROM features, including Internet games, screensavers, etc.; twenty-four scene selections; a short booklet essay; two widescreen theatrical trailers; one TV spot; and one sneak preview trailer for DreamWorks' "Shrek." As usual for the company, though, English is the only spoken language, and only English subtitles are provided for the hearing impaired.
Parting Thoughts:
I can't say "Chicken Run" eclipses the beauty or imagination of traditional animated features like "Fantasia" or "Pinocchio," nor can I say it affected me emotionally the way the digitally animated "Toy Story 2" did. But there's no doubt "Chicken Run" is among the best of its breed, no small fry in the world of family entertainment. I recommend it heartily.
If the film has any weaknesses, they are almost too trivial to mention. I thought the plot too brief at under eighty minutes, the film ending much too quickly. The plot is also too obvious in its structure, sometimes too easy to anticipate the characters' actions or the story line's next turns. And the ending is a bit too silly, too pat, and too sentimentalized after most of the harder-edged action that has gone before. But it is a family-oriented feature, after all, and there's a little something in it for all ages. One of the best lines, incidentally, comes from a hen just after being reprieved from death: "All my life flashed before me. It was quite boring."
Video:
As to the film's visual presentation, it, too, is excellent. The colors are remarkably rich, deep, and burnished for an animated feature. Like its purely computer-generated cartoon cousins, this clay-animation release has an almost three-dimensional quality about it, a depth of image that makes it seem all the more realistic and all the more beautiful. Color definition is also quite good, and there is little grain in the 1.74:1 widescreen DVD transfer.
Audio:
Choices for sound are Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS ES, and Dolby Surround. The DD 5.1 is clean and clear, but there is not a lot of range in the frequency or dynamic spectrum. There are a few good rear-channel effects, but mostly the sound is just unobtrusive, getting its job done with a minimum of bother.
Extras:
DreamWorks labels the disc a "Special Edition," so expect a few extras. There is an audio commentary with directors Peter Lord and Nick Park. There are two "eggsclusive" documentaries, one called "Poultry in Motion," twenty-one minutes long, taking us behind the scenes of the production design, and another called "The Hatching of Chicken Run," fifteen minutes long, with more of the same. Then, there's a "Read-Along Script" that might be fun for kids; a few "screaming chicken panic buttons" set about; very extensive cast and crew bios and filmographies; DVD-ROM features, including Internet games, screensavers, etc.; twenty-four scene selections; a short booklet essay; two widescreen theatrical trailers; one TV spot; and one sneak preview trailer for DreamWorks' "Shrek." As usual for the company, though, English is the only spoken language, and only English subtitles are provided for the hearing impaired.
Parting Thoughts:
I can't say "Chicken Run" eclipses the beauty or imagination of traditional animated features like "Fantasia" or "Pinocchio," nor can I say it affected me emotionally the way the digitally animated "Toy Story 2" did. But there's no doubt "Chicken Run" is among the best of its breed, no small fry in the world of family entertainment. I recommend it heartily.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]5729[/release]