34. Chicken Run
I feel conflicted about this so much. Yeah, this film is still in middle tier but it's still way lower than I expected it to be when I started doing this. Chicken Run is an incredibly cherished movie to me.
I remember watching it so often when I was young and being sucked in by the story and the drama centered around these weird looking chickens. That’s why I did sort of find myself a little disappointed that the same magic wasn’t captured upon rewatching it all these years later, unfortunately.
It’s still a good movie and a very charming one at that but for a couple of reasons the intensity that I recall being there when I was a kid just wasn’t anymore. While that’s to be expected, what with growing up and all that, I do feel like there are things about it that lend themselves to general scrutiny. It does so in ways that are really hard for me to ignore too.
This film is about a bunch of chickens on a farm trying to escape from their prison so that they can live freely out in the open. The farm is written, designed, and treated exactly like a prison. It’s dark and gloomy all the time and the atmosphere is appropriately tense. They spend their entire lives laying eggs for Mrs. Tweety (Miranda Richardson ) and her business partner Mr. Tweety (Tony Haygarth) and if they fail to lay eggs anymore than they get eaten. A light of hope comes in the form of Rocky the Rooster (Mel Gibson), who our lead Ginger sees "flying" into their farm from overhead. Under the assumption that he can fly and in exchange for keeping him a secret from the circus people trying to find him, he has to teach them all how to fly before Mrs. Tweety’s next big step for her farm comes to fruition. What step is that? She’s going to start making chicken pies. The dastardly fiend.
It’s a pretty creative premise that carries itself like a thriller for children, sort of.
Our main character, Ginger (Julia Sawalha), is a chicken who is steadfast and never gives up. Even at her lowest point, when she considers doing so it only lasts for a little bit before she’s back on her feet again. It's endearing how strong her will is. Maybe even inspiring.
Rocky is… one of those confident, suave, handsome (to chickens) kind of characters. You know the type. The roguish, dashing, daring individual with quick wit and a comeback for everything. Sort of. Because underneath his exterior he’s actually far more scared and far less cool than he actually is. He comes off as just a straight up charlatan for most of the film until he reveals the other side of himself when he gets everyone to lighten up and start dancing to the hit song “Flip, Flop and Fly”. It’s a song that when it came on I immediately started singing it again because the memories of my children flowed right on back.
There are other named characters in the film too. The charmingly aloof Babs (Jane Horrocks) who is always knitting. The sort of cranky Bunty (Imelda Staunton) who has the air of a neighbor lady who probably has weird plastic wrap around her couch. The kind who wouldn’t like the neighborhood kids very much but also, probably wouldn’t actively be a dick to them either. Mac (Lynn Ferguson), who is the poindexter chicken that is in fact female. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that it was hard to tell at first. I was surprised when I found out but it makes sense. All the chickens are female. They have to be to lay eggs.
Fowler (Benjamin Whitrow) is the only male on the farm before Rocky shows up and he’s a rooster. He’s an incredibly old rooster who constantly tells old stories about the time he served on the air force. I did wonder how that worked throughout the entire film and the reveal of how is actually kind of funny. Aside from him, there’s also Nick and Fetcher (Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels), two mice that are trying to help the chickens escape but for the price of some of their eggs, which is bad because those eggs are how they keep from being eaten.
The set-up and premise is, again, really good. The characters are all fun and distinct too, though, most of them aren’t given a TON to do outside of Ginger and Rocky. That’s really where the meat of the story is and the majority of it is sadly taken up by Rocky shambling to teach the chickens how to fly which he doesn’t actually know how to do. You as an audience member know it will never work. As such it kind of reads a bit like time wasting.
The best part of the film does remain the dark atmosphere. The film is baked in it and it's the kind of thing that usually gets my blood flowing, especially in media for kids. That makes it doubly sad that my older self was a lot more numb to it this go around. I recall that scene of Edwina the chicken being killed at the near start of the film being terrifying when I was young. Seeing them all line up and then witnessing Mrs. Tweety smiling down at her when she saw that she had no eggs, grabbing her with an axe in hand, and then just cutting her head off in silhouette was dark. It remains dark. Even darker was seeing her skeleton on a plate later in the film.
Mrs. Tweety and Mr. Tweety are pretty good villains. Way better than someone like whats-his-face from El Dorado. They’re dynamic as an unrelenting, angry woman who lords the power she has over this one man and a bunch of chickens somehow remains imposing. Mr. Tweety is just endearing for being the put upon servant who can see that the chickens are up to no good but isn’t believed because they’re fucking chickens. "I told you they was organized" isn't gonna cut it as credible testimony.
Unfortunately, despite still admiring the dark atmosphere, the great premise, the fun characters, and effective villains, it all wasn’t enough to entirely push the rest of it forward. Because the thing that I realized wasn't hitting as well this go around was the story. The general plot is fine but the story feels like it's leaving so much on the table. There's really not a lot going on here. The movie doesn't occupy that much in terms of critical events I can think of in my head aside from that one scene where Ginger and Rocky discover the horror of the pie making machine.
So much of it is dedicated to Rocky's lie. The scenes where he's teaching them to fly only have stints of comedy to offer really and the film certainly isn't un-funny or anything but it's just subdued enough to make it not feel like it's enough.
I needed a little bit more than JUST this. This plot point in movies where there's a guy telling a lie that's eventually going to be revealed and when it is the entire world view of the people he's lying to will be shattered was tired even here in the year 2000. When you have something like that, the important thing to do is to pull an Aladdin and drench it with different conflicts and spectacle that makes the ride fun and worth it. If it weren't for the spectacular stop-motion animation, I don't know if it would have even felt worth it wading through that part for so long. I kind of just wanted them to hurry to the point where they found out the truth already.
This is also just a personal issue of mine but I’ve eaten so much chicken in my life. XD
Maybe that’s part of the reason why the dark atmosphere didn’t actually negate the I'm-a-lying-liar plot as well for me now. If so, that’s a little funny and kind of messed up I suppose. However, I do still believe there is something to be said about how truly little does ultimately happen when things are said and done.
The film's biggest saving grace is in just how it looks though. The stop-motion animation provided by Wallace and Gromit’s Nick Park runs circles around a lot of these films in style alone. It's a wonderful style of animation and one that I always want to see more of when I can. It's such a fantastic tool for horror as well. They really need to stop being dicks to the animation community and get that through their thick skulls already. Because despite my misgivings about it now we really do need more movies like Chicken Run. Perhaps with a more original plot beat to utilize for the arc of it's characters but that's something I feel could easily be achieved.
The way Chicken Run comes together just makes for a more easily accessible, more charming watch than some of the more generic, less focused stuff below it on this list. We'll be getting to those shortly.
For now, enjoy your chicken pies you freaks. I assure you, there's no ginger in there.
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5 months, 1 week ago
18 Mar 2025 00:40 CET
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