Chicken Run (2000)

Directors:

Peter Lord
Nick Park

Writers:

Peter Lord (story) &
Nick Park (story) ...

Release Date:

21 June 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Family | Comedy

Tagline:

This Ain't No Chick Flick!

Plot:

Chicken Run is a comedy escape drama with a touch of passion set on a sinister Yorks chicken farm in 1950's England

Plot Keywords:

Chicken | Farm | Escape | Rooster | Freedom

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 22 wins & 23 nominations

Cast

Phil Daniels	...	Fetcher (voice)
Lynn Ferguson	...	Mac (voice)
Mel Gibson	...	Rocky (voice)
Tony Haygarth	...	Mr. Tweedy (voice)
Jane Horrocks	...	Babs (voice)
Miranda Richardson	...	Mrs. Tweedy (voice)
Julia Sawalha	...	Ginger (voice)
Timothy Spall	...	Nick (voice)
Imelda Staunton	...	Bunty (voice)
Benjamin Whitrow	...	Fowler (voice)
John Sharian	...	Circus Man (voice)
Jo Allen	...	Additional Chicken (voice)
Lisa Kay	...	Additional Chicken (voice)
Laura Strachan	...	Additional Chicken (voice)

Also Known As:

C:R-1 (USA) (promotional abbreviation)

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital EX | SDDS | DTS-ES

Certification:

USA:G (certificate #37470) | Iceland:L | Canada:G (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Quebec) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Germany:6 (bw) | Argentina:Atp | Australia:G | Brazil:Livre | Chile:TE | Denmark:A | Finland:K-8/5 | France:U | Hong Kong:I | Netherlands:AL | New Zealand:G | Norway:7 | Peru:PT | Portugal:M/4 | Singapore:G | South Korea:All | Spain:T | Sweden:Btl | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | UK:U

Company:

DreamWorks SKG

Trivia:

The characters' bodies were made of silicone with latex covering, while the heads and hands (or wings) were plasticene. All the chicken characters have collars and ruffles to hide the disparity between the modeling clay heads and wings and the latex-covered bodies.

Goofs:

Continuity: The "Egg Production Table" in Mrs. Tweedy's hand changes twice.

Quotes:

[last lines]
Nick: Here's a thought. Why don't we get an egg and start our own chicken farm? That way we'd have all the eggs we could eat.
Fetcher: Right. We'll need a chicken, then.
Nick: No... no, we'll need an egg. You have the egg first, that's where you get the chicken from.
Fetcher: No, that's cobblers. If you don't have a chicken, where are you going to get the egg?
Nick: From the chicken that comes from the egg.
Fetcher: Yeah, but you have to have an egg to have a chicken.
Nick: Yeah, but you've got to get the chicken first to get the egg, and then you get the egg... to get the chicken out of...
[...]

Movie Connections:

References Braveheart (1995)

Soundtrack:

Sobre las olas (Over the Waves)

Eggselant

Hailing from the animation house that brought us such jems as Morph, the Wallace and Gromit series and Rex the Runt, Chicken Run is the first ever feature length claymation ever attempted.

Set on a chicken farm in Yorkshire some time in the middle of the century, our plucky (sorry) heroines face a lifetime of hard labor laying for the farmers, and if their performance is not up to par they quite literally face the chop. Ginger, making her way to the top of the pecking order (sorry again) attempts jailbreak after farcical jailbreak, but success is less than forthcoming.

Enter Rocky The Rhode Island Red, (Rocky Rhodes for short, and you can't blame me for that one, the writers came up with it) apparently able to fly, the chickens look to him to help them bust this chicken coup, but Rocky is not what he may appear to be.

That's the plot in a nut (egg?) shell, and as you can imagine the subject matter made for perfect "salutes" to the classic world war 2 escape movies, references to which abound throughout. From Ginger tossing a baseball (actually a sprout) in the "cooler" (coal bunker), to Fowler's incessant ramblings about his old RAF days.

The lead characters are deep and endearing enough for you to care about what happens to them, if a little stereotypical at times. The interaction between them is fluid and believable, all the more amazing considering that Mel Gibson never even set foot in the same recording studio as the other actors, reading his lines in a studio in America instead. The supporting cast provide plenty of humour and Mrs. Tweedy substitutes quite nicely for the Nazi camp commandant.

The animation is lively and colourful the characters wonderfully expressive in that unmistakable style developed in the Wallace and Gromit shorts, and thanks to the fact the sets are real models there is plenty of scope for dramatic lighting effects.

The only real fault I could find in the film was that it just seemed a little too... American at times. Hollywood's involvement showed through the English setting to some degree, especially as you get to the movie's climax which seems to go a bit overboard, especially compared to the utterly hysterical ending to The Wrong Trousers. But all in all I have to say I really enjoyed this movie. Now all we need is a Wallace and Gromit movie.