Chicken Run

viewed July 14, 2000 on VHS    Full Details

Leaving X-Men, my bro and I decided to hit Shanghai Noon on the other end of the theater, doing our patented too-slick-for-lobby-security beeline from theater 1 to the bathroom to theater 2 that we have perfected over a decade of self-made double features.  The only hitch was that Shanghai Noon was still 45 minutes away from screening.  Walking into the theater, we thought we were in for a treat: having the film screened just for us.  But when we realized we had mistimed the screening, we decided to hit Chicken Run next door.  

In a huge half-empty auditorium we were able to stretch our legs out, pop open our sodas and enjoy the amazing claymation of Aardman Studios.  Being endeared to the Wallace and Gromit shorts, we were looking forward to seeing what Nick Park had spent years working on, though I was a bit skeptical about how the understated delights of his wit and workmanship would translate to the big screen. 

What I saw met my lowered expectations.  In the long format the wonders are fewer and further between.  It’s an entertaining film but the chickens do little to transcend the prison camp clichés on which the plot is built.  The animation is impressive but not amazing. The action sequences, impressive only in that they were crafted through many painstaking weeks of meticulous manipulation of clay, were in essence borrowings from Toy Story and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  The humor wasn't as refreshing as I would have expected, dangerously resembling the pop-culture referencing that passes for wit that has burdened Disney cartoon features for the past decade.  Finally, the characters weren't all that memorable, although the message of feminist empowerment was a delight, and somehow more substantial than that of Disney fare.  Instead of one girl seeking freedom on her own, we have a group of ladies uniting their wings and wits to overcome impending peril.   

To cap off the evening we snuck back into Shanghai Noon, which was finally underway. From what we saw, Jackie Chan has mellowed his act but his stunts still offer flashes of brilliance.  The story was much like Rush Hour except this time it is set in the Old West and apparently they decided to improve on the wisecracking Black sidekick by making him white.  I have no knock on Owen Wilson though, he is cute.  The whole affair was mildly entertaining until Lucy Liu appeared as a Chinese princess held in bondage.  I didn’t buy it for a minute.  Which made me feel bad because I've always been a pusher for films with Asians or Asian themes.  But when Hollywood movies on this subject come up with such lamebrainedly generic plotlines and characters, one wonders if mainstream representation is really a good thing. 

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