Chicken Run
I guess I’ve been a fan of Aardman animation work before I even knew what Aardman was. As a child I used to watch Tony Hart’s TV program just for the two minute sketches of Morph. I’ve also been a big fan of the Wallace and Gromit series of animations, so the thought of a full length feature film from Aardman / Nick Park was very appealing. ...
I guess I’ve been a fan of Aardman animation work before I even knew what Aardman was. As a child I used to watch Tony Hart’s TV program just for the two minute sketches of Morph. I’ve also been a big fan of the Wallace and Gromit series of animations, so the thought of a full length feature film from Aardman / Nick Park was very appealing.
Plot
This is an escape drama with a difference. It’s not about prisoners of war escaping from some POW camp; it’s about a group of chickens trying to escape from Tweedy’s farm. Mr and Mrs Tweedy (Tony Haygarth and Miranda Richardson) are the evil farm owners. They run the farm with a strict regime and if any chicken doesn’t provide its quota of eggs then it’s the Dinner Table for them.
The escape committee is run by Ginger (Julia Sawalha) and the brains of the operation is Mac (Lynn Ferguson). After many failed escape attempts things look desperately grim for the chickens until Rocky the Rooster (Mel Gibson) lands (crashes) in the farm. Rocky promises to teach them to fly in exchange for hiding him from the circus.
Meanwhile things start to look pretty grim for the chickens as Mr’s Tweedy comes up with a new way of getting rich from the chickens. Will they learn to fly in time to escape or all they all doomed to become Chicken Pies?
Video/Audio
What can I say; the picture quality is absolutely superb. There’s no hint of any digital compression or artefact problems. The colours are warm and rich and all the darker scenes come across strongly. The disk comes in a 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format and it really is a first class picture.
The disk comes with both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS audio tracks. I watched the film with the DTS track and found it to be excellent. There’s plenty of use of the whole sound field especially in the Pie Machine scenes. I think that this film and Gladiator are the first Region 2 releases to be given a DTS soundtrack. It’s certainly good to see DTS being taken seriously in the UK at last.
Extras
There’s a good selection of extras on the disk. Although I don’t usually class them as an extra, I’d like to say that the menus are all very nicely animated.
First up is the audio commentary track. The commentary is from directors Peter Lord and Nick Park. This is a very good commentary track with plenty of detailed into about the processes involved in the making of the film. As well as discussing how the film was created they also point out several film spoofs that I missed the first time I watched the film.
On the trailers side there’s a teaser trailer, a regular trailer, a trailer for the Chicken Run game and a film spoof trailer called Chicken Impossible. This is a very funny trailer that’s styled on Mission Impossible 2.
Aardman Archive is a collection of 14 different clips from various Aardman animations through the years. These include some very early Nick Park work, a short Morph clip, Sledgehammer music video, Creature Comforts, Heat Electric advert and some Wallace and Gromit clips. This is a very interesting collection that shows the progression of the medium over the years. It’s also a good taster for the Aardman animation DVD that’s now available.
Chickens go in, Pies come out is a 15 minute documentary hosted by Nick Park and Peter Lord, this is a look at the animation film making process showing how they move the characters and make them talk etc.
Fowl Play - The making of Chicken Run is as you’ve probably guessed another making of documentary. This covers more ground than the previous documentary and includes cast interviews as well. There’s some overlap though as parts of the other documentary also appears in here.
The best extra on the disk though has to be for those of you lucky enough to have a DVD-Rom drive. This disk has probably the best DVD-Rom extra I’ve ever seen on a disk. From the opening menu you can choose Introduction to Aardman, Full Film Synopsis, The Film Makers or the Voice Cast. Alternatively you can go to the main menu and choose from the many options there. These will give a mix of video sequences, text pages and even interactive sections. There’s too much to list here, but suffice to say, this is an excellent set of DVD-Rom extras.
Overall
This is an excellent film; it’s full of great comedy and is superbly filmed and animated. The casting is also perfect; the almost all female cast fit their characters faultlessly. Julia Sawalha (‘Saffy’ from Absolutely Fabulous) sounds great as the tough hero Ginger. Mel Gibson puts a real personality into the character Rocky, several times the film pokes fun at some of the characters he’s played in other films and there’s a hilarious scene where he’s singing along to ‘The Wanderer’.
Miranda Richardson (Sleepy Hollow) plays the villainous Mrs Tweedy and Tony Haygarth plays her rather dopey husband. It’s not just these main characters though the supporting cast are just as good. Jane Horrocks (‘Bubble’ from Absolutely Fabulous) as the rather dim witted Babs has some great lines like "I don't want to be a pie, I don't like gravy”.
Benjamin Withrow is the mumbling old Cockerel who constantly harps on about his days in the RAF. Finally Timothy Spall (“Barry” Auf Wiedersehen Pet) and Phil Daniels play the rats and they are both everything you would expect a talking rat to be.
It’s not just the casting that makes it a great film though the comedy is intelligent enough to appeal to adults and the characters silly looking enough to appeal to children. There’s loads of escape film parodies throughout the film and the whole farm just has the look of a World War 2 POW camp.
I really can’t recommend this disk enough. Apart from being a great film that you can watch time and again the disk is packed with extras and the audio and video quality is faultless. My only complaint (and a very minor one) is the fact they packaged it in such a cheap looking case.
This page has been read:
8952
times