When you had been a child within the 2000s, you could have fond reminiscences of watching Rooster Run.
The stop-motion animated movie about revolutionary poultry was a free adaptation of the Steve McQueen traditional, The Nice Escape. It follows one significantly rebellious hen who will cease at nothing to free her flock from their oppressive farm.
The movie is notable for not simply being an excellent children’ flick, however a real must-watch for all ages. There’s a motive the movie is pushing a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Because it’s now streaming on Netflix, Watch With Us breaks down why Rooster Run needs to be your subsequent watch.
The Script is Entertaining and Sensible for Each Children and Adults
Probably the greatest issues about Rooster Run is that it isn’t simply senseless leisure to place in entrance of your children whilst you tune out and scroll in your cellphone. Rooster Run is a good movie, interval, and an enormous a part of that’s because of the screenplay, which doesn’t condescend to its youngster viewers. The writers of Rooster Run respect kids as clever beings. As an alternative of writing slop and fart jokes, they pen an affecting story that simply occurs to middle on silly-looking anthropomorphic chickens.
The humor, too, is one thing that may transcend generational divides by providing extra lowbrow humor for the younger ones whereas sneaking in some one-liners that solely adults will perceive. These are the most effective varieties of kids’s movies — ones that know tips on how to enchantment to the sensibilities of youngsters with out patronizing them, whereas concurrently providing some extra mature content material and themes that may make the watch pleasurable for his or her mother and father. On the finish of the day, the characters could also be chickens, however they’re extremely human, and we are able to see ourselves in them.
The Cease-Movement Animation Is Beautiful to Take a look at

Nick Park directing Rooster Run DreamWorks/Everett
Rooster Run is a product of the Aardman animation studio, the preeminent animation studio of England and arguably the producers of a number of the finest stop-motion claymation of all time (they’re additionally dwelling to the pleasant characters of Wallace and Gromit). However the strategy of stop-motion animation is arguably too grueling for the mind to even course of. Throughout the filming and animating of Rooster Run, one minute of the 84-minute movie was accomplished per week.
However that tough work comes via completely within the completed product, and stop-motion animation is not only pleasant for kids to look at, however a real artwork kind that may be appreciated by extra mature audiences. That meticulous consideration to element remains to be on full show within the Rooster Run sequel Daybreak of the Nugget. Time didn’t intrude with the extent of expertise that Aardman is understood for.
It Has a Surprisingly Progressive Thesis
1963’s The Nice Escape stars Steve McQueen as an American soldier who’s captured by the Nazis throughout WWII and who leads a decided escape plan for his fellow captives. That premise serves as the inspiration for Rooster Run, with the character of Ginger (voiced by Julia Sawalha) because the McQueen surrogate. So too does Ginger lead her personal revolution in opposition to the oppressive forces of her captors, Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy (Tony Haygarth and Miranda Richardson, respectively).
Thus, the movie is imbued with a surprisingly progressive and revolutionary spirit, bearing on themes of employee exploitation, resistance, Anti-fascism and feminism. As a result of whereas it’s a rooster (voiced by Mel Gibson), who seemingly gives the hens with their means to flee (the in the end false capacity to fly), it’s the feminine chickens who craft their escape vessel partly using their stereotypical “girl’s work” expertise like stitching and knitting. In the long run, Rooster Run could depart your kids with a nagging compulsion to overthrow the powers that be.