Customer Reviews

Chicken Run [VHS]

5 star:		(146)
4 star:		(56)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Poultry in motion ! What a great movie, there's more entertainment in the opening credits than most movies have in total.

I was totally impressed by the entire movie. The characters are fanastic, the plot is really funny and the stop film animation is superb.

Ginger keeps plotting to escape the Tweedy's egg farm. Mishap after mishap mirror Hogan's Heroes. There's even the coal box outside the Tweedy's where Ginger spends her time in the "cooler" after each failed escape attempt.

Rocky the 'flying' Rooster arrives to "save the day". That's as much as I'll say about the plot. EGGselent family entertainment!

The extras are pretty cool too! Truly an EGGsquisite dvd.

There are not many movies out there that can equally entertain thirty-somethings and toddlers, but this one does! Grab your popcorn and get ready for pure, wholesome family fun.

Well, what an absolute joy and surprise this movie turned out to be. I was dumb-founded from start to finish as to how the animators actually created this magical stop-motion picture. In the past three days I have watched this disc over and over again, not tiring of it at all. The story (ala "Stalag 17" and "The Great Escape") is simple yet effective. A group of English hens constantly plot and scheme to escape from their chicken farm, run by the tyrannical Mrs Tweedy (the voice of Miranda Richardson), before they are turned into chicken pies. Their only hope comes in the shape of a cocky, plucky American rooster named Rocky Roads (Mel Gibson in his best performance to date). "Chicken Run" is filled with great adult one-liners and jokes and is packed with every war/escape movie cliche know to this genre. It will also appeal to the little ones. The disc is great value. The DTS soundtrack is pretty awesome and really kicks into power when the chicken pie oven blasts into action....WOW! The video transfer is crystal clear, which adds an extra dimension to the clay models. The extras are fun also. The "Chicken Panic" button is very cute, "The Making Of" docos (there are two) are VERY interesting and informative, and there is great information about the movie hidden throughout the menus....you have to find them! The highlight of the disc is the voice of Jane Horrocks ("Little Voice" and Bubble from "Ab Fab") who steals the show as Babs the dumb hen! She's hysterical. Make sure you buy this disc for your DVD library. You won't be disappointed! If this movie doesn't win an Oscar at next year's Academy Awards....I'll give up poultry for life!

This movie is a lot of fun, and very similar humor to the Wallace & Grommet shorts. Fans of "Absolutely Fabulous" will recognize the main chicken (Saphron from Ab Fab) and the air-headed chicken (Bubbles from Ab Fab--how appropriate!). Very witty British humor, and humorous animation style throughout. You will want to watch it again the next day after seeing it. Tons of extra features. Adults will probably find this funnier than younger viewers, who will probably be wrapped up in the storyline alone.

I'll admit I almost became a vegetarian after witnessing those poor yet engaging chickens starring in the excellent (yes, I decided against the bad pun, EGG-cellent) movie "Chicken Run." I think I was expecting something brainless yet less offensive than the other fare when I chose this movie, but I'm glad I did. It's only fair that I say one of the major appeals of this movie was it's spoofing of "The Great Escape," one of my favorite WWII movies. However, even if I had never seen that classic, "Chicken Run" would have been highly appealing. Clay animation, quality clay animation is under-represented. Visually, this movie was astounding. The humor was appropriate for all levels of comprehension, without boring an adult audience. In fact, an adult might find this movie far more amusing than a child, but let's not deprive anyone of the priveldge of seeing this film. The voices were very well chosen (I love the accents), including a surprising Mel Gibson. One reason I enjoyed this movie was because I did not immediately recognize a voice and associate it with the person, as happens when celebrities provide the voices for other animated films. In this, the voice was that of the character, which kept my distractions down. The plot was really very original, despite the spoof quality. Overall, GREAT movie... and I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

CHICKEN RUN is a great movie. It is one of the best movies of 2000. It is a film that contains a lot of humor for both children and adults. The movie is made by the people responsible for WALLACE AND GROMIT and if you enjoy those films, you will probably enjoy CHICKEN RUN.

One of my favorite things about the film is to trying to figure out all the different parodies and allusions made to other films, televison, and pop culture. The basic plot line of the story is taken from THE GREAT ESCAPE. There are a couple of great scenes, and lines for that matter, stolen directly from STAR WARS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Other films that are alluded to include STALAG 17, BRAVEHEART, SCHINDLER'S LIST, along with the television series STAR TREK.

The movie's pace is fairly quick and the characters are more substantial than the normal cardboard cut-out characters of many other animated films. All in all, CHICKEN RUN is a film that gives you a run worth your time and money.

DreamWorks' unvbelievably crafty and doubleplusgood stop-animated hit `Chicken Run' provides enough originality of concept and expertise of execution to score as fun, high-spirited entertainment for the whole family.

Deliciously reminiscent of the 1981 classic BBC series "Tenko", (a tale of british female POWS in WWII), 'Chicken Run' cleverly envisions a British poultry farm as a barbed-wired camp in which a group of animated hens and one retired RAF rooster are trapped in a life of hopeless, egg-producing servitude. When the owners of the farm decide to up their profits by converting their operation to a chicken pie manufacturing plant, Ginger, the feisty, levelheaded hen who harbors visions of a glorious life beyond the confines of this hellish prison, decides it is time for the ladies to band together and find a way to escape once and for all.

Meanwhile, into their lives drops Rocky the Flying Rooster, a wisecracking American circus performer whose head is easily turned by the attention such a singular stud naturally receives from a coop full of love-starved females. Together, these unlikely heroes and heroines plan and scheme their big break, encountering various setbacks and thwarting multitudinous dangers along the way.

As a piece of animation, 'Chicken Run' is truly outstanding. Opting for traditional animated puppetry rather than drawn cel animation or even computer-generated graphics, the creators of 'Wallace and Gromit' (Peter Lord and Nick Park) do a remarkable job of creating an assortment of characters whose movements are fluid and whose appearance borders on the surrealistic. In short, these are not `realistic' looking chickens - all the better to enhance the otherworldly quality of the film's setting. The carefully crafted sets and backgrounds represent a similar triumph in the areas of attention to detail and establishment of mood.

The movie is, quite simply, a joy to look at from beginning to end, and it is gratifying to know that filmmakers can buck the recent trend towards full scale computer animation and still produce a film that looks this impressive.

Just as important, Karey Kirkpatrick has provided a script filled with clever one-liners, finding just the right balance of acerbic wit and heartwarming sentiment. In addition, every single voice, including [absolutely] fabulous Julia Sawalha as heorine Ginger, Miranda Richardson as cool, calculating Mrs. Tweedy, Jane Horrocks as lovely, featherhead Babs, "Shakespeare in Love's" Imelda Staunton as Bunty, the Stepford Hen and delicious Lynn Ferguson as Mac (you haven't lived if you haven't heard her speak, gorry!), sounds perfectly right in the context of the character assigned to it.

All in all, 'Chicken Run' certainly is one of the great works of animation done recently and it certainly will stand as one of the best such films of our times.

"Chicken Run" may very well be the best movie of 2000, and most certainly the funniest and most awe-inspiring. It contains all the needed elements to make a children's movie, but what makes it so much better is that it still has a high adult-pleasing quotient, using lots of wit and humor that most small children would not pick up on. The story is as exciting and entertaining as any action movie this year, and the characters inspire pure humor and laughs. The movie is supposed to make you laugh, and it hit the spot for me.

The story is strikingly similar to "The Great Escape," the 1963 film in which a group of P.O.W.s try different tactics to escape a Nazi prison camp. "Chicken Run" takes the basic structure of that film and replaces its protagonists with poultry, the prison with a poultry farm, and the Germans with a chicken farmer whose greed for money is the danger the chickens may face. It's a basic remastering of the plot that incorporates a fresh plot full of humor and delight in its characters and development.

The movie centers around Mrs Tweedy's chicken farm, and the antics of one chicken, Ginger, as she tries various ways of escaping the clutches of their devilish owner. One by one, the plans fail, but they become more determined to escape when one of their own is taken to be killed because she laid no eggs. As the chickens begin to panic, in comes Rocky, an American rooster who finds himself surrounded by swooning English chickens that can't wait for him to demonstrate how they can escape by flying out of the coop. There's only one thing: Rocky doesn't really know how to fly, but is afraid of telling the chickens for fear that Ginger will turn him in to the circus he escaped from. This is the point at which the movie picks up a lot of momentum and comedy, which mostly involves the plans of escape. Once the chickens realize the awful truth that they are going to be turned into pot pies, the race is on to try and find an escape route from the coop.

I found myself laughing at so many different things this movie has to offer, but mostly at the irony of the chickens themselves. Chickens, in reality, are not smart creatures, but the movie portrays them as intelligent and quite witty, coming up with plans of escaping that end in hilarious results. Each separate character has his own stereotype of a different social attitude: Ginger embodies determination and strength, which holds the rest of the flock together. Rocky is the cocky rooster who knows he can get away with a lot just by making the ladies swoon, but he ultimately ends up a good guy. Babs is the anti-intelligence of the group, and it is her simple-mindedness that makes for most of the laughs in the movie, while Mac is the logical thinker who wants to make sure every aspect of each plan will work.

More of the laughs come with the situations the chickens get involved in. As Rocky begins his training of the coop to get them to fly, there is so much comedy to be had as they go from imitating martial arts moves to flying into fences and the ground with the help of a catapult. Screaming chickens aren't something you ever really think about being funny, but trust me, it does take a load off your mind. There is also a lot of wit and humorous dialogue that many small children will not pick up on, but that's okay, because it is more there to keep adults entertained for the movie as well. The remarks and comments are witty, intelligent, and make us laugh at just the sheer humor in the entire situation.

Claymation is all the rage in this film, and is some of the best work for animation of this sort that I've ever seen. Once you realize how much work actually goes into making a movie of this sort (each movement is shot frame-by-frame), you cna fully appreciate the work that goes into this movie. This technique of filmmaking sets it apart from regular animation and gives it a unique, 3D feel that makes it fresh and exciting.

"Chicken Run" deserves more than just critical praise; it deserves a place in the movie hall of fame for being able to make us laugh like no other movie can. This movie breaks all the rules and proves to us that laughs don't come solely from gratuity and gross-outs. It proves that a children's movie can appeal just as much to an older audience, and it does so by combining sparkling animating techniques with sharp phrases and an easily appreciated story that is delightful and completely satisfying.

Because i'm a fan of Nick Park and his work, I first liked Wallace and Gromit, then when i saw that a movie was being made by him, I couldnt wait!

Chicken Run is a great movie! Superb in its funny characters that are also filled with emotional and action! They look so lively you forget you are watching [clay] chickens!

I havent yet gotten a chance to hear the commentary, but I will comment on the other parts of the dvd. the production notes are useful, they give alot of intricate info on how the movie was made. the trailers are good too! i like the one with the mi2 parody!

the making of and hatching of chicken run features are good too, some repeated clips but overall, very informative on how the claymation process of the movie was filmed, how the characters were played by the actors, everything you wanted to know.

i'm not sure about the read-along, must be for kids...it is a nice feature to have. overall, when u watch u cant help by feel for the chickens! cheering them on!

This wonderful claymation story includes clever (and subtle) take-offs from various movies, some mentioned in other reviews. It has a brilliant script, with jokes aimed at every age range, although the subject material may not be suitable for the very young. The film has some US mainstream influence, but the overall feel (and humor) is approproately British, considering the location and time period (early 60s?). The chickens of Tweedy's farm are subject to World War II prisoner-of-war conditions. Mr. Tweedy has more than a suspicion that his chickens are "organized" in their escape attempts, led by the hen, Ginger. The motivation for escape is provided by the fate of those who don't lay eggs! However, Mrs. Tweedy has other plans for the hens, and the race to escape is on...

Chocks away! (as Toblerone chocolate bars are pulled from the landing gear).