Amazon.ca
With a film as wildly, intelligently entertaining as
Chicken Run, the score needs to be something special just to keep pace. Not a problem, then, for John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams, a pair who have worked (together and separately) on other animated films (
The Tigger Movie,
Antz) and action films (
Enemy of the State,
Face/Off)--which has prepared them perfectly for a film in which a gaggle of chickens re-enact
The Great Escape. Powell and Gregson-Williams' score is perfectly suited to the action on screen: classic instrumentation and serious themes, but with the occasional nod and wink; this is a score that--like the film itself--takes itself just seriously enough. Never bombastic, the cues pay tribute to the music of classic war and action movies--there's a hint of
The Dirty Dozen, a nod to
Indiana Jones, even a
Star Wars-esque bit towards the end.
--Randy Silver
