One of my all time favorites.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Having been hopelessly repressed and facing eventual certain death at the chicken farm where they are held, Rocky the rooster and Ginger the chicken decide to rebel against the evil Mr. and Ms. Tweedy, the farm's owners. Rocky and Ginger lead their fellow chickens in a great escape from the murderous farmers and their farm of doom. Chicken Run boasts terrific perfomances, humor but also such a beautiful animation plus Ms. Tweedy was freaking creepy to say the least and i never thought i'd see and hear Mel Gibson in an animated movie but.. (A+)

Not being familiar with the creators of Wallace and Gromit, and not knowing anything about Aardman Productions, the biggest surprise for me was that the story takes place in England with a hen house full of British chickens and an American interloper by way of the circus named Rocky Rhodes. I thought this was a fun picture with a quite noticeable plot familiar to movie fans who've seen "The Great Escape". I liked the RAF guy Fowler; if someone had thought of it, the connection to the RAF might have been translated as the Royal Air Fowl, but who's to second guess? I even noticed something of a tribute to the world of Star Trek when Mrs. Tweedy grabbed the string of lights dangling from the escape plane, and one of the chickens sounded the alarm by saying 'it's a cling-on Cap'n'. Non-Trekkies wouldn't catch the reference. All in all a colorful and action packed, family friendly animated feature that's sure to please. I always come by these flicks so much later after their original run, but was glad to catch it before it flew the coop altogether.

Chicken Run is great movie, but I won't count it as much of a DreamWorks movie than an Aardman animation one. The British humour is just too much to call it DreamWorks. Not necessarily Wallace & Gromit style, but its own style of dialougue and physical comedy. The atmosphere we are presented to in the beginning is just unnerving, and with a solid performance by Miranda Richardson as the devilish Mrs. Tweedy topped with an almost constant feeling of peril a PG-rating might have fitted better. Even though the movie has some intense action scenes, which are truly spectacular, and some dark atmospheric passages it also features some hilarious British humour and well acted charaters. Fowler and the two business rats were my favourites, they made me laugh several times. Mel Gibson as Rocky was not necessarily insufferable, but was too much of a generic douche who learns his lesson which you have seen many times before. Everything else is great, so that's just nitpicking.Chicken Run is a thoroughly enjoyable and underrated flick which will keep you on the edge of your seat with great animation, great characters, fantastic action scenes and a reminder that stop-motion still has a place among top quality entertainment.

Chicken Run is, quite honestly, an egg-cellent work of comedy, and a movie that impressed me a lot more than I expected it to, and I highly recommend watching it if you haven't already. I don't like summary, but to talk about it I should probably at least outline the film: it takes place on a chicken farm that is portrayed as a prison from the view of the chickens, who make up the bulk of the characters in the film. The movie is about the chickens and their various attempts to escape. Ok, barebones summary out of the way, the movie does a bunch of things that blew me away and really impressed me. The first of these, and the most immediately apparent, is the visual style of the movie: it is entirely claymation. Now, the only times I had seen claymation used before, I...wasn't impressed with it. However, the way they do claymation in Chicken Run is amazing, in that it is simply so expressive and detailed. The love and hard work that the creators of the movie had poured into the clay figures was immediately apparent with how detailed they looked, in spite of their simple, cartoonish, looks--it honestly felt like I was watching a 3D version of one of the Saturday morning cartoons I watched as a kid. The amount of different poses, expressions, and even effects that the filmmakers were able to do astounded me, and honestly endeared me to this style of animation. Beyond that though, the thing that I loved most about this film--and the aspect of the film that makes it stand out as much as it does--is the STELLAR writing in the film. I went in expecting a simple movie that was clearly intended for kids, and as a result the movie took me for one hell of a ride. This movie had me scared, mad, and sobbing at various points throughout, and even more often had me tearing up in laughter--but even better, I was invested in what was happening, a lot more than I am with more recent films. And honestly, this was due to the writing. The characters in the film, some of them one-notes though they may be, honestly felt so articulate and alive at times, and this was emphasized by the stellar voice work (the accent work fit each and every character to a T). I found myself getting so engrossed in their plight, and rooting for their success the entire time, and it was absolutely fantastic. Hell, I even was invested in the romance between Ginger and Rocky, as out of place as a romance subplot was in this movie--and normally I loathe out-of-place romantic subplots. But the best part is that I felt each and every character was done right, even the one-notes. For example, the antagonists were written to work perfectly with each other, and despite being farmers as the villains, still struck me with fear. The bumbling, fumbling, dunderhead that was Mr. Tweedy was an excellently-written foil to the dastardly and diabolical Mrs. Tweedy, yet even in scenes where Mr. Tweedy was the only antagonist present, he still felt menacing--something I applaud, honestly. I was also endeared to the other characters; from the silliness of the hens to the military rigidity of Ginger's father, to the rats, who were simultaneously lovable and hateable, I found myself loving each and every one of them. The biggest praise that I can give to this movie, and the greatest testament I can provide that speaks to how good it is, is that even after watching it once I not only am able to applaud it so much, but also truly wish to applaud it. It is an excellent film, and I highly recommend it.