From the makers of Wallace and Gromit came a fantastically original and funny parody of The Great Escape, titled "Chicken Run". When the title itself is a pun, you know that the movie is probably a comedy movie. And you would be right - it's a fantastically funny and cute stop-motion film. It's score is also excellent, composed by John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams. Powell's work here is fantastic, and he never managed to top himself here until How to Train Your Dragon. However, this review is about Chicken Run's score, not How to Train Your Dragon's.
Chicken Run's score is absolutely fantastic. It's a brilliantly bombastic and enjoyable score that is an absolute joy to sit through. Unlike other scores, it never gets boring at points and it's simply fantastic.
Opening Escape: *****/****
Main Titles: *****
The Evil Mrs. Tweedy: *****
Rats!: ****
Chickens are Not Organized: ****
We Need a Miracle: *****
Rocky and the Circus: ****
Flight Training: *****
A Really Big Truck Arrives: ****
Cocktails and Flighty Thoughts: ****
Babs' Big Break: ****
Flip Flop and Fly: ****
Up On The Roof: *****
Into the Pie Machine: *****
Rocky, a Fake All Along: *****
Building the Crate: *****
The Wanderer: ****
The Chickens Are Revolting: *****
Lift Off: *****/****
Escape to Paradise: *****
Perhaps Chicken Run's strongest tracks are the ones that reprise the main theme. The main theme is apparent first in Opening Escape, in a stunning brass presentation of the incredible theme. Though it lasts a mere 40 seconds, it's 40 seconds of pure awesomeness. The rest of the song is merely ok; It suits the moment, but it doesn't do anything else.
Main Titles blares out the cute yet noble main theme with power and meaning, and it is remarkably effective. The amount of instruments featured is remarkable, and what's even more remarkable is that each instrument works where it is. The kazoos sound perfect where they are, as do the flutes, triangles, and (naturally) brass. It sounds like a parody of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and as a parody, it's remarkably good.
Almost all of the five star cues are reprisals of the main theme. You have slower, calmer reprisals like that of Up On The Roof, you have noble and powerful ones like Opening Escape's first 40 seconds, you have a slightly more casual version in Flight Training, and you have an outstanding choral version in the last moments of Lift Off (hence the five star/four star rating).
One of the other great themes on this score is the one featured in Into the Pie Machine. It's a delightfully evil track, symbolizing Mrs. Tweedy perfectly. Strangely, it doesn't appear in the track The Evil Mrs. Tweedy, a sorely missed opportunity. However, its presentation in Into the Pie Machine is fun and frenetic, creating a great atmosphere without sacrificing humor. It's great. It gets a great show in Escape to Paradise, one of the best action tracks on the score.
Another one of the best tracks is Building the Crate. After about a minute of meaningless meandering, the track becomes suitably powerful and driven. It's fantastic, due to its fast-paced theme and excellent variety of instruments. The last two minutes of it are so good it's remarkable.
Another prominent theme here is the Rats! theme. It's not all that great, sadly, but it does fit the moment well due to the simple absurdity of the characters. Hence, the theme itself is strange and not altogether enjoyable, though it certainly is good where it is. Thus, it deserves four stars. It's also seen in the first minute or so of Building the Crate.
The best tracks really just repeat the same theme several times in a row. So why are they so great? Because John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams didn't succumb to the mistake many other composers made: They included so much variety of the instruments. For that reason, it's easy to enjoy the speedy tunes. Hearing the track once in brass before hearing it again in strings and then accentuated in kazoos is a refreshing experience, and one that you don't hear very often anywhere else.
The Good:
- Instrumental variety lends a sense of unpredictability to the score
- Great themes
- Main Titles
- A great sense of humor
The Bad:
- Rats! is a dumb theme to listen to
- All the songs with vocals aren't that great
- However great the main themes are, they can't carry the score entirely.
Minor complaints like how the songs with vocals aren't that great can be lodged against the score, but they don't hurt it that much. The biggest issue with the score is that the score rides almost entirely off of the best themes here. That's all well and good, but not all the reprisals work perfectly and some tracks are still lacking in comparison to the others. However good individual tracks may be, they can't carry a score all the way and that's the biggest mistake Powell and Gregson-Williams made in this one.
Nonetheless, it's a great "parody" score by the duo and it's definitely a score to grab if you liked How to Train Your Dragon.
OVERALL: 9/10