Chicken Run
“Kazoo-powered orchestral satire that saves its very best for last”
On a dreary 1950s Yorkshire farm, a flock of doomed egg-laying hens — led by the determined Ginger and a fast-talking American circus rooster — scheme to fly the coop before Mrs. Tweedy turns them all into pies. It's The Great Escape, with chickens.
Powell and Gregson-Williams score Aardman's claymation jailbreak as a full-orchestra love letter to every adventure score ever written. The forgettable first half is made whole by the excellent 2nd half.
I'm not sure what I expected with Chicken Run, and I managed to be confused even after listening to it. John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams are both phenomenal composers in their own right, and they created an electric and eclectic soundtrack that incorporates instruments that aren't in a traditional symphony. The kazoo plays a major part in this soundtrack, adding what is almost a circus-like atmosphere to a movie that is The Great Escape, but with chickens — and the score never lets you forget it. Reuniting after Antz, the pair treat Aardman's stop-motion jailbreak as license to salute the entire golden age of adventure scoring.
Here's the catch: the score is front-loaded with its weakest material. A lot of the earlier pieces are filler — appropriate for the movie, but generally not a great listen on their own.
Where Chicken Run earns its keep is the back half. "Building the Crate" and "The Chickens Are Revolting" share a construction motif that absolutely soars. Kazoos come into the fray unexpectedly, and yet they feel so welcome. "Lift Off" opens into a gorgeous choral finale, and "Escape to Paradise" sends everyone off on a high.
There's fluff, but at least it isn't grating to the ears. The first half doesn't really offer anything memorable, but I'll still periodically put on "Building the Crate" just for the magic it brings.
Track by track
19 tracks · rated out of 5Opening Escape
3:40Chicken Run
3:24The Evil Mrs. Tweedy
4:22Rats!
1:09Chickens Are Not Organized
1:01We Need A Miracle
2:04Rocky And The Circus
3:52Flight Training
3:40A Really Big Truck Arrives
5:57Cocktails And Flighty Thoughts
1:59Babs' Big Break
1:40Flip Flop And Fly
2:09Up On The Roof
3:09Into The Pie Machine
3:11Rocky, A Fake All Along
3:29Building The Crate
3:33The Chickens Are Revolting
2:46Lift Off
3:41Escape To Paradise
4:59Time weighted averages each track’s rating by its runtime (longer tracks count more). Track weighted treats every track equally. Both are computed directly from the ratings above.