I am narked. Why? I'll explain later.
Chicken Run was hatched from the
same production company, Aardman (based in Bristol,
England) as made the sublime Wallace and Gromet
short animated films. These films, including
the feature-length
Chicken Run
are made using stopgap animation of plastercine
models.
With witty allusions to
The Great Escape
and its ilk
Chicken Run, a film
about chickens trying to escape a prison-camp
like farm, starts well but then, suddenly, alarmingly,
becomes, well, a bit naff. There was nothing
to keep us amused but bothersome, nattering
chickens waddling about the place. I was wondering
if Aadman had lost their touch. But don't worry!
The middle of the film, thanks partly to the
arrival of a proud rooster saviour (Mel Gibson)
but chiefly to the appearance of fantastical
Heath Robinson-style machines of wondrous invention,
bursts into life and
Chicken Run
kept up the brilliance right to the end. The
ending is wrapped up quite neatly. This is in
stark contrast to the demented ending of
Mission
Impossible 2 released in England about the
same time.
My main grouch, a minor one, is that the chicken
characters were not all that memorable with
the worthy exception of a fantastic old anecdote
toting Ex-RAF buffer. Even the rooster played
by Mel Gibson seemed a bit nondescript. But
luckily... rats stole the show, believe it or
not. Two crafty cockney dodgy comedy rodents
pitched up. Now I can't bear barrow boy cockney
accents any more than the next fellow, but these
shifty rats half-inched the funniest lines and
scenes of the film and they deserve every second
of their glory.
Oh yes, why am I narked? Because Hollywood films
made by yanks feature yanks as the good guys
and Brits as the villains. Where as
Chicken
Run, made in Britain and funded by Hollywood
(Dreamworks) features Brits as the villains
and a Yank as the hero who saves the day.
Chicken
Run aside, this endless cliché
is another sign of the general decline of the
quality of films under the Hollywood monopoly.
A more serious malaise is Hollywood's historical
films. Brits are often portrayed as fascist,
Germans as idiots and the Americans (to the
great surprise of all historians and WW2 veterans
themselves but it must be true because Hollywood
says so) cracked the Enigma code in WW2 and
single handedly won the war, etc etc. This is
not a healthy situation. Hollywood has all the
distribution and therefore the cash but it has
no integrity, no sense of shame. To hell with
history and quality. Rant, rant, rant!
More
comedy rats.
Add your comment to this page
 | | | | |
| From: |
Jerry Williams | Subject: | 2003-08-16 09:16:29 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Mark Radburn | Subject: | 2004-11-05 22:03:23 |
| | | | |
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