Plucky Chicken

Plucky Chicken is a 2014 American 3D computer-animated comedy film produced by Frenzy Animation for Paramount Pictures with animation services provided by Reel FX Animation Studios. The film was written and directed by Karey Kirkpatrick and co-directed by Gary Trousdale and written by Josh Klausner, Len Blum, David Hoselton, and Lorne Cameron, and features the voices of Ryan Reynolds, Kristen Bell, Alec Baldwin, Danny McBride, Seth Rogen, Charlie Day, Neil Patrick Harris, Bobby Moynihan, Ed Helms, Anna Kendrick, J. K. Simmons, Jennifer Aniston, Danny Trejo, and Albert Brooks. It tells the story of a chicken named Plucky (Reynolds), who is an outcast on the farm, where the farm's chickens are threatened upon the arrival of fried chicken restaurant CEO Victor Lucksbottom (Baldwin) on their farmer's property.

Plucky Chicken was released in the United States on September 12, 2014 in 3D and conventional formats. The film grossed $297 million worldwide on a budget of $63 million and received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the animation and Reynolds, Baldwin, and Bell's vocal performances, but criticism for its story and writing.

Plot
In the late 1970s fictional town of Ferge Falls, a chicken named Plucky (Ryan Reynolds) and his mute squirrel partner Sean (Bobby Moynihan) reside in a farm near the town, where Plucky was raised by his mother Madison (Jennifer Aniston). A group of chickens led by Preston (Danny Trejo) and Reuben (J.K. Simmons) are running low on food. A hen named Lucile (Kristen Bell) and a glory hogging mouse named Tommy (Charlie Day) compete with Plucky and Sean to scavenge from a abandoned corn cart. The animals' efforts attracts the attention of a playful dog named Benny (Tom Kenny), who chases them across the city before the cart's propane tank exploding in the farmyard after its cord was bitten by the dog. The runaway cart ends up destroying and burning a large shed, where the farm animals store their food. Plucky is then banished and Sean follows him.

Meanwhile, Victor Lucksbottom (Alec Baldwin), the unscrupulous restaurant CEO of Fry'd Chicken Pit, relishes in his wealth that comes from profit-making locations across the United States. However, he notices that his hometown, Ferge Falls, is lacking one, so he decides to build the nation's largest Fry'd Chicken Pit on the site of Plucky's farm. In the town, Plucky and Sean try to get new food from other places, such as a seed shop, a corn cart, and stealing nuts and almonds from girl scouts, but their plans all fail. Plucky and Sean then discover Victor's plot and Plucky convinces the farm animals to fight back, which they do successfully, and they manage to sabotage the construction worker's efforts to tear down the farm. When the construction workers' foreman tells Victor about the animal attacks, he calls an extermination squad led by Shawn Munoz (Ed Helms) to put out traps around the farm's area. The next day, Bessie (Danny McBride) gets caught in one of the exterminator's traps, and the animals are pursued by Victor's dog, Stephanie (Mila Kunis), who later falls in love with Spottie (Neil Patrick Harris). Reuben then orders Tommy and Sean to find Victor's plans while Plucky and Lucile spring all the humans' traps. Meanwhile, Piggy finds out that Preston is secretly planning on sabotaging the "saving the farm" plan, letting the farm to get destroyed by Victor and his crew.

While searching for Victor's mansion, Tommy and Sean run afowl with a colony of territorial brown mice led by Russian-accented brown mouse Zug (Carlos Alazraqui). They manage to evade the mice, and find Victor's mansion with the help of Plucky and Lucile, where they save Spottie in the room of Victor's bratty teenage daughter, Emily Lucksbottom (Anna Kendrick). Spottie tells Stephanie he is not interested in her, breaking her heart. A chase throughout the mansion ensues, and Plucky's recklessness causes Victor to shoot Sean with a tranquilizer, who falls off a balcony to the street below, and into a coma. A doleful Plucky returns with Piggy and an unconscious Sean, reuniting with the others. While mourning for Sean, Plucky recounts the day he and Sean met when they were kids when they saved each other from a tornado. Luckily, Sean wakes up thanks to Spottie, giving him licks. Unfortunately, Victor and his men then find the farm (in which Preston anonymously led them there) and they flush the chickens out from the farm, capturing enough for the new restaurant, not to mention destroying the farm; Reuben sacrifices his life to help the remaining farm animals escape. Everyone blames Plucky for leading Victor to the farm, but Lucile helps him reconcile with the others. Plucky then tells the farm animals that he has a plan to get the chickens back and attack Victor and his crew.

At the Fry'd Chicken Pit factory, and working together under cover of darkness, Plucky and Lucile accidentally activate a series of deadly contraptions (which turns out to be the chicken slaughter machine), after they rescued the chickens, but with the help of Sean and Tommy, they escape the slaughter machine. Plucky and Lucile then get into another argument, which triggers the alarms of the factory. Shawn arrives at the factory and traps the animals except for Plucky. All alone, Plucky then convinces Zug and his army must work together regardless of whether they are from the petting zoo or a farm; this causes Zug to spare him, and agree to help. Plucky and the mice free the animals, and round them up to take back the farm. They manage to overwhelm the humans, destroy the restaurant, and attract the attention of the police. Plucky then finds Lucile, and apologizes to him for what happened and they both reconcile. After the pair make up, Emily tries to get Shawn to tranquilize them. But due to the interference of Bessie, Tommy, Spottie, and Sean, Shawn shoots Emily, knocking her out while he runs away. Victor tries to escape the chaos by using a getaway truck which also carries Preston and Lucile, but Plucky and his friends commandeer a delivery truck to catch up to the two, and Tommy defects from Preston, and reveals the truth to the farm animals, resulting in Preston being banished and voted out of the farm. Victor tries to use a box of dynamite inside the empty truck to blow up Plucky's truck at a dam, but the police shoots the tire on the truck that falls from the dam. It explodes after Plucky gets himself and Lucile off it, and they fall into the river below. Plucky makes it to a log, but finds out that Preston and Victor survived the explosion. Preston tries to kill Plucky, but the animals' weight begins to break the log. Lucile and Sean arrive to rescue them, but Plucky, deciding to be selfless in order to protect his friends, lets go of the log and falls into the waterfall with Preston.

The farm animals run away from the riverbank and hide a large bush, trapped by Emily on one side and Victor and Shawn on the other. Lucile and Piggy get an idea to give Tommy his first can of soda full of caffeine, which puts him into overdrive. Exceeding the speed of light, activates an illegal trap that Shawn had installed in the farm's area, capturing Emily, Victor, and Shawn. Emily, Victor, and Shawn are arrested for their crimes, and Fry'd Chicken Pit is shut down for good. Lucile and Sean are still mourning over Plucky, and when Spottie learns what happened, he has Sean come look at an unconscious Plucky near the river. Plucky then wakes up and hugs Lucile and Sean, reuniting with each other. Several months later, the people help rebuild the farm to its former glory. After the farm is rebuilt, Lucile embraces Plucky and suggests to tell the other animals of his heroism. However, Plucky declines, yet gains a willingness to work with others. The farm animals also find that while Tommy was in his caffeine-charged state, he had refilled their food cache with corn, chicken seed, nuts, and cheese to satisfy them for the year.

In a mid-credits scene, Preston, along with his companion Blue Bird are shown to have survived their ordeal and are sulking on a harbor buoy surrounded by sharks while coming up with another plan.

In a post-credits scene, Spottie chases Tommy to get the bone he is holding that he wants and he drives him away with the dog whistle.

Voice cast

 * Ryan Reynolds as Plucky, a chicken.
 * Leo Crawford as young Plucky
 * Kristen Bell as Lucile, a smart-going and kind hen.
 * Alec Baldwin as Victor Lucksbottom, the greedy CEO of the Fry'd Chicken Pit restaurants.
 * Danny McBride as Bessie, a cow mistaken for a female.
 * Charlie Day as Tommy, a mouse.
 * Seth Rogen as Piggy Pig, a pig who's obsessed with food.
 * Bobby Moynihan as Sean, a squirrel who hardly says anything and is Plucky's best friend and partner.
 * Neil Patrick Harris as Spottie, a dog, who is Farmer Bob's pet.
 * Ed Helms as Shawn Munoz, an exterminator.
 * Anna Kendrick as Emily Lucksbottom, Victor's young teenage daughter.
 * J. K. Simmons as Reuben, Lucile's father and the leader of the farm chickens.
 * Danny Trejo as Preston, the co-leader of the farm chickens who despises Plucky and his antics.
 * Carlos Alazraqui as Zug, a Russian-accented brown mouse who leads a colony of other territorial brown mice.
 * Albert Brooks as Farmer Bob
 * Jennifer Aniston as Madison, Plucky's mother who raised him.
 * Mila Kunis as Stephanie, a female dog who is Victor Lucksbottom's pet who falls in love with Spottie.
 * Jenny Slate as Katie the Hen
 * Will Forte as Steven, a mouse who's scared of running out of food and death of starvation.
 * Bill Hader as Lenny, a cat who secretly lives on the farm, who is usually chased by Spottie.
 * Jess Harnell, Cam Clarke, Vanessa Marshall, and Daryl Sabara as Exterminators
 * Harnell also voices Ronald, Floyd, and Ivan the Pig
 * Phil LaMarr as Tony, a cow.
 * Kelly Asbury as Ren, a chicken
 * Tom Kenny as Benny, a playful dog.
 * Emily Hahn and Ariel Winter as Girl Scouts
 * Scott Mosier as Restaurant Janitor

ADR Loop Group

 * Ava Acres
 * Newell Alexander
 * Steve Alterman
 * Stephen Apostolina
 * Dee Bradley Baker
 * Dave Boat
 * Mitch Carter
 * June Christopher
 * David Cowgill
 * Holly Dorff
 * Eddie Frierson
 * Jackie Gonneau
 * Nicholas Guest
 * Bridget Hoffman
 * Richard Horvitz
 * Josh Klausner
 * Scott Menville
 * Paul Pape
 * Michael Sorich
 * Kelly Stables
 * Pepper Sweeney
 * Marcelo Tubert

Production
Coming soon!

Release
Plucky Chicken was originally scheduled to be released on August 8, 2014; however, in September 2012, the date was pushed back to September 12, 2014, with Paramount and Nickelodeon Movies' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles taking its release slot. The film was later released in the United Kingdom on October 3, 2014. It was also released in the IMAX 3D format and was released in select international IMAX theatres in the United Kingdom, Australia, China, and other territories.

Marketing
The first teaser trailer was released on November 20, 2013 and was attached into screenings of Frozen. The first official trailer was released on March 4, 2014 and was attached into screenings of Mr. Peabody & Sherman. The final trailer was released on July 1, 2014 and was attached into theatrical screenings of Planetokio.

In late summer 2014, American burger chain Burger King announced that they will be the official partner of the film.

Video game
A video game based on the film was released on September 9, 2014 for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS.

Home media
Plucky Chicken was released on Digital HD on January 16, 2015. It was then released on Blu-ray (2D and 3D) and DVD on January 27 the same year, by Paramount Home Media Distribution. The film's home media releases included a short film titled Spottie and the Lost Bone.

Critical response
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 56% based on 144 reviews; the average rating is 5.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Plucky Chicken ' s clever humor and Ryan Reynolds's charisma do entertain younger viewers, but the premise is too familiar -- and slightly staler than some would expect." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 51 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.

Box office
Plucky Chicken grossed $118.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $178.8 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $297.4 million.

In the United States and Canada, Plucky Chicken was released alongside No Good Deed, Dolphin Tale 2 and The Drop, and was projected to gross $25–30 million from 3,905 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $8.5 million on its first day, including $930,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $26.8 million, finishing first at the box office. It made $18.4 million in its second weekend and $12.6 million in its third, dropping 31% each time and finishing second and fourth, respectively.

Main
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

Trailers
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.