Oh my God, this was fun!

Imagine The Great Escape with chickens. I'm sure this is how this film was sold to the studio. A promise made, a promise kept. Chicken Run is the latest from Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit fame. This is Park's first feature length claymation.

What Chicken Run does best is be funny. The chickens have better developed characters than most live action films. The "star" is Ginger, a laying hen who wants to break the other chickens out of the farm. Ginger knows that you only live in the farm so long as you produce eggs. Once you stop, it's the axe for you. Early in the film we see a montage of Ginger's many escape attempts. Each time, she is caught and tossed into solitary confinement, or as another chicken refers to it, being on holiday.

One day when Ginger is depressed, she asks for a sign. There is thunder far away and then Rocky the Rooster falls out of the sky. Ginger is convinced that Rocky is the chickens' ticket out of the farm.

For most of the rest of the film, Rocky is training the hens for flying lessons. The only problem is Rocky doesn't know how to fly either. But this is funny, and provides time for a relationship between Rocky and Ginger to develop. In one scene Rocky must rescue Ginger from the evil chicken pie machine. This is a great parody of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Finally, the chickens can wait no more. They make their escape attempt. One of the funniest and most exciting escapes you'll ever see on film.

Chicken Run would be a shoe in for Best Animated Feature at the next Academy Awards®, if it weren't for Fantasia 2000 which will, and should, win the trophy. That aside, this is one of the films you should spend money on this summer. Remember, and ticket is a vote for more of the same. Vote Wisely, Vote Chicken!