Chicken Run

A very good stop-motion animation! <em>'Chicken Run'</em>, which I watched a crap tonne when I was little but not for a vast number of years now, is an impressive production given it came out in 2000. Despite a pretty simple feel to the film, it's a very well developed concept. The, admittedly short, run time truly flies by. Of course everything looks, relatively, terrific, but I'm impressed by the pacing which is clean. As for the cast, Julia Sawalha is the definite standout - she's fantastic as Ginger. Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels, as rats Nick and Fetcher, are amusing. Mel Gibson (Rocky), though still decent, isn't actually that good in this. A fun and interesting story! Definitely worth seeing if you haven't already. I'm intrigued to see where they go with the upcoming sequel.

Ok, there is an huge temptation to riddle this review with puns - but I'm just going to say it's a cracking little family adventure. It's seemingly based on a whole range of classic movies from the "Great Escape", "Star Trek" to "Love Story" with a score cannibalised from just about any/everything ever written by Messrs. Korngold/Williams & Bernstein all adding to this really super stop-motion animation that Ray Harryhausen would have been proud of.. A flock of chickens are relentlessly exploited for their eggs by the evil "Mrs Tweedy" - that is, until "Rocky" (an on-form Mel Gibson) arrives over the fence and incites escape plans... Meantime their malevolent owner (Miranda Richardson) has plans to industrialise production - and this time, not just of the eggs... It's a fun frolic, this - with great vocal performances from Jane Horrocks, Julia Sawalha and Benjamin Whitrow as the rather pompous RAF spotter chicken "Fowler". Nick Park and Peter Lord - and the wonderfully imaginative Aardman team - have built upon their "Wallace and Gromit" experience and created some charming characters with some great lines for both the young, and the formerly young. Certainly a film you can leave the kids alone in front of the telly to.