Machines and their owners would seem to have been common villains in films but rarely are the victims as witless and easily led as most of the Pommie chooks in Chicken Run.

These fowls are happy to blindly produce eggs, not considering their lot much at all, even though a fall in egg production will certainly lead to decapitation! They’re working class, English, rural, 1950’s chooks and too conservative and well mannered to upset the egg cart, especially since the farm they live on is particularly repressive and secure.

It’s run by the steely Mrs.Tweedy (voiced by Miranda Richardson) with the help of her obedient and not too bright husband. But one of the chooks is a thinker and a rebel. Ginger (voiced beautifully by Julia Sawalha) is a classic Steve McQueen, The Great Escape type.

She's constantly being caught trying to escape, to be then thrown into the cooler complete with baseball. But she's frustrated mainly because of the complacency of the other hens. Then along comes the dashing rooster called Rocky (voiced by Mel Gibson).

She enlists him to teach the hens to fly the coop. Chicken Run has been created with stop motion "clayanimation" techniques by Peter Lord and Nick Park, who have created the Wallace and Grommit television characters and their award winning short films A Close Shave and The Wrong Trousers.

In spite of it's rather grim text, which includes the axe actually swinging on a dear old gal hen who's egg production had dropped below quota, Chicken Run is amusing, innovative, and one of the few films I'd recommend for the few youngsters who haven't yet witnessed their quota of 5 million murders on television.

The rest of us might find Chicken Run a bit bland, unable to distract us, as we rush about stupidly like those hens, hoping the axe won't fall our way.

3 Watch Out Flys