Ten Stars or Less

Before I butcher this Chicken Run review, I want to share that I am a huge fan of clay animation. I think it is a unique form of animation that brings a different dimension to characters that we get to know and love. Wallace and Gromit may be some cool characters and I love Shaun the Sheep, but I couldn’t stand Chicken Run. This movie was Dreamworks’ first venture into clay animation and for me personally, this was a complete bust. Mel Gibson has done so many action movies in his career, it was really hard to take him serious as an animation chicken. The rest of the crazy chickens, led by Ginger (Julia Sawalha), want to escape and will do everything they can, given their limited options. The jokes weren’t there and neither was the action. This movie was really silly and never really got me interested in the story or other characters. Due to the lack of excitement, I had a hard time staying focused while waiting for the outcome. These chickens are pretty clueless, except when it comes to the notion of “freedom”. I am so happy that Dreamworks was able to recover from this. For some reason this movie holds a 7.0/10 rating on IMDb and a 97% rating on RottenTomatoes. Did these people love the animation or did they actually like the movie? I’d love to sit every one of those people down and get that question answered. I could score this movie really high based solely on animation, but as a story and a movie I couldn’t find any space in my heart to give it anything higher than this. 1/10