Review: First "CHICKEN RUN" Runs Wild at the End

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 54 of 2023 (No. 1943) by Leroy Douresseaux

Chicken Run (2000)

Running time:  84 minutes (1 hour, 24 minutes)

MPAA – G

DIRECTORS:  Peter Lord and Nick Park

WRITERS:  Karey Kirkpatrick; from a story by Peter Lord and Nick Park

PRODUCERS:  Peter Lord, Nick Park, and David Sproxton

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Dave Alex Riddett (D.o.P.)

EDITOR:  Mark Solomon

COMPOSERS:  Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell

BAFTA nominee

ANIMATION/FANTASY/ADVENTURE/COMEDY

Starring:  (voices):  Julia Sawalha, Mel Gibson, Phil Daniels, Lynn Ferguson, Tony Haygarth, Jane Horrocks, Miranda Richardson, Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton, and Benjamin Whitrow

Chicken Run is a 2000 stop-motion animated fantasy and comedy film directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park.  It is a British, French, and U.S. co-production produced by Pathe and Aardman Animations in partnership with DreamWorks Animation.  Chicken Run was Aardman's first feature-length animated film and, as of this writing, remains the highest-grossing stop-motion animated film in worldwide box office history.  Chicken Run is set at a British chicken farm where the chickens hope that an American chicken can help them escape the farm's vicious owners.

Chicken Run opens in post World War II England, specifically at an egg farm that is run like a prisoner-of-war camp.  The farm is owned and operated by the cruel Mrs. Malisha Tweedy (Miranda Richardson) and her submissive husband, Mr. Tweedy (Tony Haygarth), who eat and kill any chicken that is no longer able to lay eggs.  Inside the chicken yard, a rebellious chicken, Ginger (Julia Sawalha), is constantly engaged in escape attempts.  Her goal is to help all her fellow chickens escape the farm and find a new home in the land that lies behind a hill some distance from the Tweedy's farm. 

One night, Ginger witnesses a rooster glide over the coop's fences.  She learns that he is an American rooster, Rocky Rhodes (Mel Gibson), a.k.a. “Rocky the Flying Rooster” a.k.a. “Rocky the Rhode Island Red.”  Believing that Rocky can fly, Ginger begs him to help teach her and the other chickens how to fly so that they can escape the farm.  Rocky is not quite what he seems, however, and time is running out as Mrs. Tweedy has devised a new way to get more money out of the farm's large population of chickens.

I have been putting off seeing Chicken run for 23 years.  Then, I discovered that a sequel, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, was set to debut on Netflix December 15, 2023, so I decided to finally watch it.  I am a fan of the later feature-length animated films that Aardman Animations produced in partnership with DreamWorks Animation, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and Flushed Away (2006).  I have also enjoyed a few of Aardman's animated short films, including A Grand Day Out with Wallace & Gromit (1989) and Wallace & Gromit in the Wrong Trousers (1993).

In the end, I like Chicken Run, not as much as I like other Aardman works I've seen.  Chicken Run takes some inspiration from director John Sturges 1963 war and adventure film, The Great Escape.  Chicken Run is also described as an adventure film, but it is really a sedate comedy and drama that only occasionally plays with its edgier elements.  Honestly, I think the storytellers under-utilize the Tweedys who are delightfully menacing and are endlessly funny as a dysfunctional couple.  The film is filled with interesting characters, inventive production design, and a novel plot, but the filmmakers seem to keep holding back the narrative's energy for the big ending – more than they need to as far as I'm concerned.

Chicken Run does not really live up to its comic and adventure potential until the last 20 minutes of the story before the end credits start.  The film suddenly seems to wind up and then explode in a final act of flying contraptions, determined poultry, and maniacal farmers.  In fact, the finale is the first time in the film that Mel Gibson's Rocky does not seem like an extraneous character.  I will try to see the sequel on Netflix, but for the time being, finally seeing Chicken Run seems to be the only run I really need to make at the story.

7 of 10

B+

★★★½ out of 4 stars

Saturday, December 16, 2023

NOTES:

2001 BAFTA Awards:  2 nominations: “Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film” (Peter Lord, David Sproxton, and Nick Park) and “Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects” (Paddy Eason, Mark Nelmes, and Dave Alex Riddett)

2001 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical”

The text is copyright © 2023 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Negromancer News Bits and Bites from October 16th to 22th, 2016 - Update #24

Support Leroy on Patreon.

MEDIA - From TheWrap:  AT&T has bought Time Warner for 85 billion dollars.

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OBIT - From BleedingCool:  The comic book artist, Steve Dillon, has died at the age of 54, Saturday, October 22, 2016.  A Brit, his best known work to American fans includes Preacher (co-created with Garth Ennis) and The Punisher.

From BleedingCool:  The comic book community remembers Steve Dillon, acclaimed comic book artist and creator.

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STAR WARS - From YahooMovies:  Donald Glover will be Lando Calrissian in "Young Han Solo" movie.

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COMICS-FILM - From Variety:  "Deadpool" director Tim Miller has left the "Deadpool 2" sequel over creative differences with star Ryan Reynolds.

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OBIT - From YahooTV:  The actor and comedian, Kevin Meaney, has died at the age of 60, Friday, October 21, 2016.

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ANIMATION - From THR:  Tom Hiddleston joins Aardman's animated film, "Early Man," which is to be directed by multiple Oscar winner, Nick Park.

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SPORTS - From YahooSports:  The Los Angeles Sparks win the 2016 WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association) championship title.

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MOVIES - From Variety:  Gugu Mbatha-Raw joins Avu DuVernay's "A Wrinkle in Time."

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COMICS-FILM - From CinemaBlend:  Early reviews for Marvel Studio's "Doctor Strange" are in.

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MOVIES - From Variety:   Colin Firth in talks to star in Disney's "Mary Poppins Returns."

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MOVIES - From TheGuardian:  Leonardo DiCaprio looking to star in real-life tale of Jim Crow and Black children used as circus freak.

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MUSIC - From YahooMusic:  Eminem releases an 8-minute diss track of Donald Trump.

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MOVIES - From YahooMovies:  Warner Bros. is working on a new Willy Wonka movie.  Even with all the praising of Gene Wilder following his recent passing, I knew someone was plotting to revive Wilder's signature role (according to some) in a new movie.

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MOVIES - From THR:  Michael Moore has apparently revealed a surprise Donald Trump film.

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MOVIES - From Deadline:  Disney is producing a live-action version of its 1998 animated film, Mulan.  Sony is producing a competing live-action version of the tale of Mulan, and they have hired, Alex Graves, who has directed episodes of "Games of Thrones."

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BOX OFFICE - From Variety:  Thanks to billion dollar hits like "Captain America: Civil War" and "Finding Dory," Disney sets a record for international box office, which they already held from 2015.

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BOX OFFICE - From BoxOfficeMojo:  The #1 movie at the 10/14 to 10/16/2016 weekend box office is "The Accountant" (starring Ben Affleck) with an estimated take of $24.7 million.

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OBIT - From ESPN:  The former NFL player, Dennis Byrd, has died at the age of 50, Saturday, October 15, 2016.  Byrd broke his neck in a 1992 game and despite odds learned to walk again.

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MOVIES - From BleedingCool:  "Jurassic World 2" will be "scarier and darker." Better would be good, too.

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COMICS-FILM - From Variety:  The new Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Tom Holland, dishes on "Spider-Man: Homecoming."

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MOVIES - From EW:  There will be a "Ride Along 3" with Kevin Hart and Ice Cube, says director.

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ECO - From RSN:  Actor Mark Ruffalo and rocker Neil Young were arrested  during protests to free a journalist.

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MOVIES - From TheGuardian:  Oliver Stone says the U.S. government lies all the time.

TRAILERS:

From YouTube:  The first official trailer for the third Wolverine movies, "Logan," which is due March 3rd.

From YouTube:  First trailer for "The Boss Baby," from DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox.

Review: Gromit Shines in "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 152 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) – animation
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK
Running time: 94 minutes (1 hour, 34 minutes)
MPAA – G
DIRECTOR: Nick Park and Steve Box
WRITERS: Bob Baker, Mark Burton, Nick Park and Steve Box
PRODUCERS: Claire Jennings, Peter Lord, Carla Shelley, David Sproxton, and Nick Park
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Tristan Oliver and Dave Alex Riddett
EDITORS: David McCormick and Gregory Perler
Academy Award winner

ANIMATION/ACTION/COMEDY/FAMILY/FANTASY

Starring: (voices) Peter Sallis, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Peter Kay, Nicholas Smith, Liz Smith, John Thomson, Mark Gatiss, and Vincent Ebrahim

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a 2005 Oscar-winning, stop-motion animated film. This comic horror, British film focuses on the eccentric inventor, Wallace, and his silent dog, Gromit (the brains of this duo).

Director Nick Park and his stop-motion, “Claymation”-like characters Wallace & Gromit, return in a new film, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The cheese-loving Wallace (voice of Peter Sallis), an affable, absent-minded inventor, and his faithful dog, Gromit, who doesn’t say a word, but is smarter and wiser than his human master/friend, have their first full-length film in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit; they previously were the stars of three animated short films, all Academy Award-nominated, with two winning Oscars.

In this new feature, Wallace & Gromit’s hometown is in the midst of a vegetable growing fever because the Tottington Hall Giant Vegetable Competition. The enterprising chums have been cashing in on this “veggie-mania” with their pest control outfit, “Anti-Pesto,” which captures and humanely dispatches the hundreds of rabbits that have invaded the town’s sacred vegetable gardens, trying to eat all those overly pampered giant veggies the town folks are growing for the Giant Vegetable Competition.

Suddenly, a huge, mysterious vegetable-ravaging beast begins terrorizing the town attacking all those prized garden plots by night, eating or destroying everything in its path. Panic sets in because this monster, dubbed the were-rabbit, endangers the Giant Vegetable Competition. Determined to protect the competition Tottington Hall has held almost annually for over 500 years, its hostess, Lady Tottington (voice of Helena Bonham Carter), hires Anti-Pesto to catch the creature, but in a humane fashion that doesn’t lead to the vegetable-chomping marauder’s demise. Also, lying in wait, is Lady Tottington’s snobby suitor, Victor Quatermaine (voice of Ralph Fiennes), who’d rather shoot the were-rabbit, which would not only make him a local hero, but might also secure him Lady Tottington’s hand in marriage. With Wallace & Gromit having so much trouble securing the beast, Lady Tottington must eventually give in to Victor’s desire to hunt the were-rabbit. What she doesn’t know (but Victor does) is that the hunt could have dire consequences for Wallace, who is smitten with Lady Tottington. Can Gromit save the day again?

Co-directed by Nick Park and Steve Box, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is easily one the few truly great films I’ve seen this year. Five years in the making, and the film shows that Park and his crew are geniuses of stop-motion animation (also known as Claymation®). There is just so much ingenuity in the film, from Wallace’s crazy inventions and assorted contraptions – such as the brain altering machine that is supposed to make rabbits shun veggies to the suction device and tanks that holds captured rabbits.

Park and company create amazing edge-of-the-seat action scenes as thrilling as those in live action movies. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit also has safe adult humor – a combination of soap opera romance and mystery and intrigue mixed with the offbeat Wallace & Gromit’s disarming humor. The film is a touch dry in several places, in which scenes play out slowly or seem padded. Also, I didn’t like Lady Tottington and Victor Quatermaine because they were both facially unattractive and too caricatured, especially Victor, more unlikable than he needs to be even as a villain.

The story, ultimately, is about a man and his dog – Wallace the happy chum and Gromit the good-natured patient companion who always takes care of his cheese-loving master. Gromit, who doesn’t have a mouth, has physicality on par with silver screen legends of the silent era such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, and Gromit’s face can be as expressive as a pantomime character. Gromit, made by hand and animated by a painstaking stop-motion process, has soul in a way that characters created in the other 3-D animated process, computer animation, likely won’t ever have. Wallace & Gromit, two of the most delightful characters in the history of animation, are more engaging than the characters that populate such films as Shrek and Monster’s Inc., as fun as they are.

Expertly crafted, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit will impress even viewers not interested in “how they do it.” Fun to watch, it’s one of the year’s premiere comedies and best films.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2006 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Animated Feature Film of the Year” (Steve Box and Nick Park

2006 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins: “Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film” (Claire Jennings, David Sproxton, Nick Park, Steve Box, Mark Burton, Bob Baker) and “BAFTA Children's Award Best Feature Film” (Nick Park, Steve Box, Peter Lord, David Sproxton)

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Animated Short Review: "The Wrong Trousers" is the Right Thing

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 83 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Wallace & Gromit in the Wrong Trousers (1993) – animated
Running time: 30 minutes
DIRECTOR: Nick Park
WRITERS: Bob Baker and Park
PRODUCER: Christopher Moll
EDITOR: Helen Garrard
Academy Award winner

SHORT/ANIMATION/COMEDY/FAMILY/MYSTERY with elements of sci-fi

Starring: (voice) Peter Sallis

Wallace & Gromit in the Wrong Trousers is a 1993 stop-motion animated short film. In 1994, the film, also known as Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers, won an Oscar for “Best Short Film, Animated” and the BAFTA Award for “Best Animated Film.” Directed by Nick Park (who would go on to co-direct 2000’s Chicken Run for DreamWorks), the film is animated in stop-motion animation using clay figures. The public is familiar with this kind of animation under the brand name “Claymation.” This is the art of modeling characters and props out of clay and using stop-motion photography to give the illusion of the figures and props moving.

Wallace (voice of Peter Sallis) is the oddball inventor with an obsessive appetite for cheese and crackers, and Gromit is his nonchalant and patient dog, the smarter one of this duo. Wallace obviously loves his dog to the point of treating him like a spouse or a third hand (as if Gromit were a Wallace to Wallace’s Sherlock Holmes). Gromit actually keeps things organized and moving in the house.

In this film, Wallace discovers that he is low on finances, so he takes a tenant into his large home in order to get some extra money. However, his lodger, a beady-eyed penguin, is really the thief, Feathers McGraw. Soon, the sly, and silent penguin has moved into Gromit’s room, and has come between master and canine. McGraw’s real plan is to use the enormous mechanical, walking pants that Wallace gave Gromit for his birthday to rob a museum. It’s up to Gromit to save his master from these horribly wrong trousers and a scheming penguin.

There is no one reason to love the Wallace & Gromit cartoons. From the seamless stop-motion animation and to the smooth and easy pace of the story and from the instantly endearing leads to the unflustered way they tackle difficulties, there is something that just rings right about director Nick Park’s fabulous little animated shorts. Maybe, it’s because Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers is just practically perfect in every way.

10 of 10

NOTES:
1994 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Short Film, Animated” (Nick Park)

1994 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: “Best Animated Film” (Christopher Moll and Nick Park)

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Animated Short Review: "A Grand Day Out with Wallace & Gromit"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 84 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

A Grand Day Out with Wallace & Gromit (1989) – animation
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK
Running time: 23 minutes
DIRECTOR: Nick Park
WRITERS: Steve Rushton and Nick Park
PRODUCERS: Rob Copeland and Soozy Mealing
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Nick Park
EDITOR: Rob Copeland
Academy Award nominee

SHORT/ANIMATION/COMEDY/FAMILY/SCI-FI

Starring: (voice) Peter Sallis

Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out is a 1989 animated film short. It is the first in the series of Wallace and Gromit short films that use the stop-motion animation process. A Grand Day Out earned an Oscar nomination for “Best Short Film, Animated,” while winning the BAFTA Award for “Best Animated Film.”

A Grand Day Out follows Wallace (Peter Sallis), the wacky inventor, and Gromit, his exceedingly patient and brilliantly resourceful canine. The duo builds a rocket ship that takes them to the moon so that Wallace can sample the different cheeses of which the moon is made. However, this “cheese holiday” isn’t free of trouble when they encounter a stove-like contraption. This moon resident wants to go back to earth with them so that it can ski.

A Grand Day Out is a bit technically inferior to the Wallace & Gromit films that would follow it, but its charm lies in the short’s imaginative settings and the fantastical execution of its scenario. There is lots of charm here, and Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out (also known as A Grand Day Out with Wallace & Gromit) shares something with the great fantasy films like The Wizard of Oz and classic Disney animated films, which is a sense of wonder that can capture the heart of young and old viewers alike.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
1991 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Short Film, Animated” (Nick Park)

1990 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: “Best Animated Film” (Nick Park)

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