(2000) For me this clay-model stop-action animation from directors Peter Lord and Nick Park (both of whom also wrote the original story) never got off the ground. Chickens that can fly are about as scarce as hen's teeth. Somewhat reminiscent of George Orwell's Animal Farm, the chickens (who look more like turkeys) on the Tweedy farm somewhere in England are confined behind chicken wire as if inside a concentration camp. Mr Tweedy patrols the perimeter with his two fierce canines; Mrs Tweedy, who wears black gum boots, eliminates any hen whose egg production falls off.

Repeatedly intrepid Ginger (voiced by Julia Sawalha) plans and attempts to lead the other fowls in a breakout, each effort ending in failure and a spell in the coal bin for her. "No chicken escapes from Tweedy's farm," exclaims Mr Tweedy, who suspects the chickens are conspiring. His wife disagrees, telling him its all in his head because chickens lack the intelligence to organize.

Frustrated with her fellows of a feather to appreciate the danger, Ginger asks: "How many more empty nests will it take?" When she rhapsodizes about the green grass on the other side of the hill, a hen inquires: "Who will feed us?"

Unexpectedly Rocky (Mel Gibson's voice) the flying rooster, aka Rhode Island Red, lands in their midst with an injured wing, having collided with the weathervane. He's an American, referring to himself as the Lone Free Ranger, attracted to English chicks, though the chickens soon realize he's on the lam from the circus. In exchange for hiding him, he promises to teach them how to fly. "That Yank is not to be trusted," warns Fowler, the old rooster and veteran of the RAF.

Strange boxes arrive and extra feed is given to the chickens to fatten them. Recognizing the signs of change from an egg farm to a poultry-meat factory - the boxes contain the machinery to manufacture pies - Rocky like a slick politician advises Ginger, whom he calls hard-boiled: "Tell them what they want to hear"; but she prefers honesty. When the desperate chickens attack Mr Tweedy, he cries out, "The chickens are revolting!" to which Mrs Tweedy concurs: "Finally something we agree upon."

My amusement largely relied upon the pair of mice, Fetcher (Phil Daniels) and Nick (Timothy Spall), who debate the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg.

Noticing that in this movie these hens and roosters all have teeth, and that mice were associated with the chickens, I was reminded of Stephen Jay Gould's essay "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes," in which he wrote: "Archaeopteryx, the first bird, still possessed teeth, as did several fossils from the early history of birds. But no fossil bird has produced teeth during the past sixty million years, while the toothlessness of all modern birds ranks with wings and feathers as defining characters of the class."

However, Gould recounted: "On February 29,1980 (enough of a rarity in itself), E.J. Kollar and C. Fisher reported an ingenious technique for coaxing chickens to reveal some surprising genetic flexibility retained from a distant past…. In four of their grafts [of mouse mesenchyme onto chick epithelium], complete teeth had developed! Chick epithelium had not only induced some mouse mesenchyme to form dentin; it had also been able to generate enamel matrix proteins." In other words, these hens with the help of mice had produced new teeth.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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