CHICKEN RUN (DreamWorks) Voices: Julia Sawalha, Mel Gibson, Miranda Richardson, Tony Haygarth, Benjamin Whitrow, Jane Horrocks, Timothy Spall, Phil Daniels. Screenplay: Karey Kirkpatrick. Producers: Peter Lord, David Sproxton and Nick Park. Directors: Peter Lord and Nick Park. MPAA Rating: G Running Time: 85 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Nick Park's three Wallace and Gromit shorts for Aardman Animation -- A GRAND DAY OUT, THE WRONG TROUSERS and A CLOSE SHAVE -- are examples of inspired, brilliant film-making. Park's feature film debut -- CHICKEN RUN, co-directed with Peter Lord -- is not. Sometimes it's hard to accept simple quality when you've come to expect genius; I suspect I'll cry a river of tears when John Lasseter finally produces a film that's merely good. CHICKEN RUN is unlike virtually any other animated film you're likely to see this summer, and not just because the characters are manipulated pieces of clay instead of drawings or CGI creations. It's an appealing, well-crafted film with a unique sensibility and a few wonderfully imaginative scenes. And its script can't manage one-tenth of the wit verbally that the rest of the film creates visually.
The familiar Aardman goggle eyes and extra-wide mouths are attached to fowl faces in CHICKEN RUN, set at a Yorkshire poultry farm. One industrious hen named Ginger (Julia Sawalha) is ever plotting her escape from the clutches of Mrs. Tweedy (Miranda Richardson) and Mr. Tweedy (Tony Haygarth), but every plan she hatches is thwarted by her well-intentioned but bumbling fellow egg-layers. Then a potential savior literally falls from the sky: Rocky (Mel Gibson), a cocky American cock who has escaped from his gig as "amazing flying chicken" with the circus. Rocky has wounded a wing in his crash landing, but Ginger sees him as the final piece of the escape puzzle. After all, if Rocky can fly, he can surely teach the chicks of Tweedy Farm a thing or two about getting airborne.
The broad structure of CHICKEN RUN is a satire of World War II POW films -- Ginger and her pals are "inmates" of Coop 17 -- but the genre gags form only a tiny part of the film. The rest of the narrative involves a fairly banal bickering relationship between Ginger and Rocky, occasionally jazzed up by a nod to the love-hate relationship between Brits and Yanks. The dialogue could have stuck to that angle for its humor, but screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick instead opts for a seemingly endless litany of ghastly puns. Gibson, Sawalha and many of the other performers do energetic voice work, despite the absence of much energy devoted to developing characters. As long as the characters are flapping their beaks, CHICKEN RUN is fairly limp stuff.
That CHICKEN RUN soars highest when it's silent probably comes as no surprise to Wallace and Gromit devotees, who know that Park has a gift for elaborately constructed sight gags. CHICKEN RUN's finest moments showcase that gift, from the opening credits montage of Ginger's unsuccessful escape attempts to the climactic mid-air showdown with Mrs. Tweedy. In between, there's the deliriously funny sequence in which Rocky comes to Ginger's rescue when she's strapped into an automated chicken pot pie-making machine. The clockwork comic timing is vintage Nick Park, with the nods to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK actually underplayed so that they simply add flavor to an already priceless set piece. And then there are tiny pleasures like a teapot disguised as a hen, and a group of hens in a synchronized tai chi display. The depth and texture of the clay-mation world is satisfying enough; the things the film-makers do with that world are a joy to behold.
There's nothing about the Aardman style that demands the animated equivalent of silent film storytelling; the classic short CREATURE COMFORTS wedded person-on-the-street dialogue with clay critters to charming effect. This particular story, however, has the processed flavor of a dozen other animated films. The characters never get enough chance to develop the personality Gromit packs into one furrowing of his plasticine brow, because they're too busy clucking off Kirkpatrick's one-line groaners. I'm thoroughly convinced Nick Park has a positively glorious feature film in him -- perhaps it's the Wallace and Gromit feature planned for a few years hence -- but this one isn't quite it. It's an entertaining warm-up, a few bits of brilliance packed in disposable kiddie fluff. In short, it's simply good. When you've got a genius at your disposal, that's not quite good enough.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 fair fowls: 7.
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