Chicken Run (G)
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While the meticulous effort going into this Claymation poultry-escape saga is awe-inspiring indeed, the debut feature by the English duo of Peter Lord and Nick Park still falls short of its creative potential. The team's ingenious "Wallace and Gromit" shorts (chronicling the lives of a cheese-loving man and his dog) set the bar with their remarkably inspired and offbeat characters, while Chicken Run's are plucked straight from the stockpile. Ginger (voiced by Julia Sawalha), the leader of the chicken insurgency, carries echoes of Penny, the grating girl-genius niece of Inspector Gadget; and Rocky (voiced by Mel Gibson), an American "lone free-ranger," manages all the stale wit of Bob Saggett. Most disappointing is the villainess, Mrs. Tweety (voiced by Miranda Richardson), the farm owner who schemes to turn the chicks into pot pies. Her evil doings are utterly predictable and, worse, uninteresting. But what about the visual wizardry? you ask. Well, in fact, there's nothing in the film's string of cute sight gags and chicken solidarity scenarios to compare to the finer moments of the three half-hour "Wallace and Gromit" shorts--which, it should be noted, are available for rent at most video stores. (Jonathan Kaminsky)
Review by Jonathan Kaminsky
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