Chicken Run

Fans of the unique Aardman brand of stop-motion animation need no convincing - these people are, of course, geniuses. After years of producing innovative and hilarious animated shorts, TV spots and advertising, Aardman - headed by animation gurus Peter Lord and Nick Park - created A Grand Day Out, which placed a dour Yorkshireman named Wallace and his rather intelligent and sarcastic dog Gromit in a spaceship and sent them to the moon in search of cheese. What could have been a mildly amusing experiment with long-form animation ended up being downright hilarious as well, thanks to a smart script and Aardman’s winning character design, which focussed primarily on faces - beady eyes, big eyebrows and an enormous widescreen mouth with teeth aplenty. It was a visual style that had already become an Aardman trademark (in the short film Creature Comforts and Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer music video), with the two subsequent Wallace And Gromit films achieving even more refined animation, funnier scripts and characters and growing worldwide acclaim (as well as introducing the world to a seriously evil penguin). It was only a matter of time before Aardman made a feature film.

Chicken Run, largely financed by US company Dreamworks, is the first chance Aardman have had to work with a Hollywood-sized budget. And in many studio executives’ hands, that could have spelt disaster in so many ways. Dreamworks, however, seem to have been content with the inclusion of only one big-Hollywood-name Star Voice (Mel Gibson) and left the rest of the casting to be done in England. As a result, the Aardman style isn’t compromised at all - in fact, it’s enhanced, thanks to the vocal talents of actors like Julia Sawalha (Ginger), Jane Horrocks (Babs), Imelda Staunton (Bunty), the wonderfully Scottish Lynn Ferguson (Mac) and Miranda Richardson as the evil Mrs Tweedy, the actress seeming to be having a great time being the meanest farmer in the British Isles…!

The story is simple, and intentionally borrows heavily from classic prisoner-of-war escape movies. Ginger, Babs and the rest of the chickens are living in prison-like conditions in the hatchery at a farm run by the gaunt, crabby Mrs Tweedy. She demands egg production quotas from the chickens, and if those quotas are not met, the chicken will end up as someone’s roast dinner. Needless to say, the optimistic Ginger wants out, but has so far not been able to escape - until hope arrives in the form of Rocky, a stunt rooster who quite literally flies into the camp, giving the Ginger and the other chickens the hope that he might be able to teach them how to fly out of and away from their “prison�. Mrs Tweedy’s sudden burst of economic rationalism (in the form of a giant pie-making machine) only makes the need to escape more urgent.

To the uninitiated, this probably all sounds either incredibly silly or just plain childish. But that’s the joy of Aardman’s work - it has extremely broad appeal, and kids will revel in it all. But there’s plenty here for adults as well, from in-jokes about other movies to sly references to the earlier work of those doing the voices. Much of the humour - and most of the animation - owes a small debt to classic British comedy like the work of Monty Python and The Goodies, and anyone with a fondness for slightly out-there humour will feel right at home.

Visually Aardman’s work has improved on what was already a high standard - when these guys started animating, computer animation was in its infancy, and their experience shows - and despite the low-tech methods, there’s more life and character in these chickens than you’ll ever find in the latest computer-generated eye candy. And while you’re never in doubt that this is old-fashioned animation, the use of tracking camera movements, very theatrical lighting and large-group animation really pulls the viewer into the characters and their story. As Wallace might say, it’s cracking fun - Chicken Run is the pinnacle of Aardman’s achievements to date, and proof positive that they’re more than capable of carrying a feature-length film without losing the magic that makes them the Aardest men in town.

Only one word can really be used to sum up the video quality here - superlative. With gloriously saturated colours, perfect shadow detail and not an artefact in sight, this is a state-of-the-art film-to-video transfer that reflects Dreamworks’ usual high standards, and then effortlessly surpasses them. Everything on screen is crystal clear, and no compression problems can be seen throughout the feature. Compared to the already-excellent image quality on the Region 1 disc, this PAL version is even better. There’s simply nothing at all to complain about.

“Crisp� is a word I’ve possibly been overusing in my reviews of late, but this soundtrack is, well, crisp. Supplied as a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack at the higher 448kbps bitrate, the audio here features crystal clear dialogue, some highly directional (but not overdone) effects and a bright, exciting music score.

The US and UK discs also include a DTS-ES 6.1 soundtrack, but I doubt many will complain that the Dolby Digital track supplied here is insufficient - and folks, rest assured that extra rear surround channel doesn’t make THAT much difference to your enjoyment of a movie even if you happen to be one of the dozen or so people in the country with a DTS-ES capable decoder! That said, there’s plenty of free space on this disc, and a DTS-ES track could have been included if desired - after all, even the pitch-shift of PAL is no excuse, as a PAL-speed DTS track already exists on the UK disc.

Ultimately, though, the Dolby Digital audio track is more than adequate for this film, and it sounds terrific; it also downmixes extremely well to Dolby Surround.

The extra features screens here are, unusually, given separate menu items off the main menu, though the second screen is accessible from the first in the usual way. Note that the extra material here is sourced from Dreamworks in the US, and differs markedly from that found on Pathe’s UK disc. However, the region 4 disc omits a few things found on the R1: the easter eggs (no great loss, as they were only trivia text screens) and the DVD-ROM content being the major ones noticeable. The DVD-ROM content supplied on the R1 disc was underwhelming, to say the least, and was mainly comprised of rather pointless Flash-written games and gimmicks. Still, as with the DTS soundtrack, there’s no reason it shouldn’t have been included anyway given the free space on this disc.

Documentary - Poultry In Motion: The work of Ed Marsh, the man who came up with the astonishingly good Under Pressure documentary for the laserdisc release of the Special Edition of The Abyss (it’s also on Fox’s DVD) as well as that film’s definitive trailer, this 21-minute featurette is of higher quality than most such making-of offerings, though still suffers from rampant cliché and bad chicken puns thanks to its over-happy US origins. Still, there’s some interesting footage and info to be found here, along with interview snippets from all the key vocal cast as well as Park and Lord. Video quality is average, the full-frame source probably an NTSC conversion.

Documentary - The Hatching Of Chicken Run: Also the work of Ed Marsh and containing much content from the first documentary, this 15-minute effort has a few choice fragments of Aardman’s early work as well as some too-brief camera tests to recommend it. You’ll get a feeling of pure déjà vu watching this after the first one, and the cringeworthy chicken puns turn up here at ten times the rate of the previous featurette.

Trailers: Two theatrical trailers and a TV spot. The second theatrical trailer is the best of these, taking a Mission: Impossible approach to things just for the sake of Yet Another Bad Chicken Pun. Both theatrical trailers are 16:9 enhanced, while the TV spot is 4:3.

Panic Button: Triggers a (very) short film fragment of the chickens going “AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!� Slightly inspired by The Hitch Hikers’ Guide To The Galaxy, this “feature� triggered two random film fragments on the region 1 disc, but only offers one here. We’re sure you’ll cope with the loss.

Directors’ Commentary: Nick Park in the left channel, Peter Lord in the right (and don’t try wearing headphones to listen to this - it hurts!). The two animator-directors have much to offer about the laborious production process for their film, and their anecdotes and explanations are fascinating. They start off sounding understandably nervous, but soon warm to the process and provide one of the better commentaries currently on offer.

Read-Along: One for the kids. And ONLY for the kids! This 17-minute presentation is essentially the Chicken Run story illustrated with still frames, and with a Disney-style American narrator reading the story in a manner clearly intended for young children. There are brief motion-video segments here, while the narration is printed on screen for the kids to follow. Converted from NTSC, this item is slightly lacking in clarity and accurate resolution. It’s also a bit of an unusual and cheesy inclusion for long-time Aardman fans not used to seeing the team get the “Disney kids� treatment.

Cast Biographies: Multi-page bios and comprehensive filmographies for ten of the principal voice actors. Nicely informative, and also interesting for the censorship of the title of Imelda Staunton’s then-upcoming film Sad F**kers’ Club (sadly, rather generically retitled for release as Crush).

Crew Biographies: 13 - count them, thirteen - crew members, including directors and producers, score the bio and filmography treatment here. Note to other studios - this is how it should be done!

Some noise has been made by consumers, since this disc’s local release, of both the non-inclusion of the UK disc’s extras and the omitting of the DTS-ES soundtrack. The former is easily explained by the all-pervasive problem of international rights, while the latter remains unexplained altogether. But ultimately, the local release of Chicken Run offers the two key ingredients from ALL the different releases - a wonderful movie with massive repeat-viewing appeal transferred to DVD with exceptional skill, and a terrific commentary track from two of the animation world’s finest craftsmen. It’s worth buying the disc for these reasons alone; everything else, in comparison, is mere chicken feed. Pardon the (chicken) pun.