Операция «Голубиная почта»: Герои над Ла-Маншем.

In May 1944, five years after the declaration of World War II, three Royal Homing Pigeon Service war pigeons are flying across the English Channel with the White Cliffs of Dover in sight, carrying vital messages to Great Britain. Despite the poor weather conditions the pigeons have nearly reached their destination. They are, however, suddenly ambushed and attacked by a Nazi German enemy peregrine falcon named General Von Talon; two of the pigeons are instantly killed, yet the third, Mercury, is taken as a prisoner of war. Elsewhere, a small wood pigeon named Valiant is watching an Allied forces propaganda film in his local bar (an overturned rowing boat) in West Nestington. He is best friends with Felix, an old seagull with a peg leg and the local barman. Wing Commander Gutsy, a war hero, flies into the bar, informing everyone that signups are scheduled the next day in Trafalgar Square, London. Valiant flies off to London, bidding his mother and Felix goodbye. In London, Valiant meets an unhygienic slacker pigeon named Bugsy, who is being hunted by two magpie thugs, after having tricked them at a shell game. In order to escape the thugs, he signs up with Valiant. The recruits: Valiant, Bugsy, Lofty, an intellectual red pigeon, and two muscular but dim witted brothers named Toughwood and Tailfeather. This group forms the Royal Homing Pigeon Service Squad F, and are sent to a recruit training facility. Under the command of Sergeant Monty, who declares that he will toughen them up for the RHPS, the training begins. Meanwhile, Von Talon and his henchmen, Cufflingk and Underlingk, try numerous attempts to discover the message's departure location. However, Mercury refuses to tell, despite the tortures inflicted upon him, such as irritating him with yodeling music and injecting him with truth serum, before Mercury accidentally reveals the location: Saint Pierre. Valiant develops a crush on Victoria, the camp's nursing dove. Eventually, Gutsy arrives and tells the Sergeant that the recruits need to leave the next morning, despite their training being vastly incomplete. Bugsy, however, decides not to go on the "highly dangerous" mission and flees the camp that night. Next morning Valiant and the others prepare to leave, and start to board a Handley Page Halifax bound for occupied France, but not before Bugsy shows up at the last second. The journey quickly becomes dangerous, as the plane is caught in an anti aircraft attack. Their plane sustains heavy damage and the pigeons soon have to bail out, in boxes equipped with parachutes. The pigeons are dropped from the plane, but a technical malfunction causes Gutsy's box to fail to deploy. The plane crash lands nearby, but then explodes, presumably killing Gutsy. In France, the pigeons meet Charles de Girl and Rollo, two mice from the French Resistance, Mouse Division, who lead them to Saint Pierre, where they receive the message they have been ordered to deliver. They soon come under attack by Von Talon's henchmen, resulting in Bugsy and the message being captured. Von Talon takes the message from Bugsy and decides to lock him up and kill him later, planning to personally deliver the message to Der Fuehrer himself. Valiant and the troops follow Bugsy to the falcon's bunker, where they discover that Gutsy has survived the plane crash. Valiant takes advantage of his small size and sneaks into the bunker through the gun barrel, retrieves the message, and frees Bugsy and Mercury, but the falcons witness the escape and give chase. As Gutsy, Bugsy, Mercury, Toughwood, Tailfeather and Lofty fight off Cufflingk and Underlingk, Valiant flies to London to deliver the message, followed by Von Talon. After a climactic chase, Valiant hides until he is caught by Von Talon. With the help of Felix and the resident pigeons, Valiant outwits Von Talon by getting a giant hook caught on his medals, leaving him to be beaten by the water wheel. Valiant delivers the message, and upon its arrival in the war room, a change of plans is made; the Allied fleet will land in Normandy. After receiving the Dickin Medal, Squad F returns to the local bar in West Nestington, where Valiant reunites and shares a romantic kiss with Victoria. A message is then displayed commending the animals that saved thousands of lives during World War II.

Valiant takes the Second World War as its backdrop, and thus the film has various factual references to World War II. McGregor himself called it "a good old fashioned war movie". The film's use of World War II imagery is apparent throughout; for instance, the villainous characters in the film hold obvious links to the Nazis, although Nazism is never specifically mentioned, nor are Nazi symbols ever overtly visually depicted. Edited symbols are, however, discreetly inserted; for example, General Von Talon wears a large Reichsadler badge that depicts the German eagle, taken from the coat of arms of Germany. Yet this version, unlike the Hoheitszeichen (Nazi Germany's national insignia), has the eagle grasping two bones,

quote box|width=250px|align=right|quote=If you think it's Nemo with feathers, then you're wrong. It's easier to create colorful tropical fish, or toys running around a kid's room. Valiant is different. It's set in the Second World War; it's dark, dangerous, yet funny — and that's quite hard.|source= —Gary Chapman While Valiant was technically the second computer animated film to be made in the United Kingdom, after The Magic Roundabout, it was the first one ever to be released. John H. Williams of Vanguard Animation said that they knew a lot of European animators who had worked at Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks, and were interested in going back to Europe; due to this reason, they wanted to become the first studio to produce CGI film in Europe. Williams said this before he knew about The Magic Roundabout. He also explained the attraction to making the film in Britain, saying that it would have been $3 million cheaper to make in LA than in Britain but they had $10–12 million in tax and co production money that they were able to attract because they made it in own country.

Gary Chapman made his directorial debut with Valiant. Initially Chapman was hired for character and production design during project development before he was attached to direct the film after extensive work with story development, writers, and producers. Chapman was subsequently storyboard artist, designing characters for the Vanguard Animation film Space Chimps.

The film, on a tight budget and with a relatively small group of animators, was created in 106 weeks, As a result of the low number of animators, some critics called the film's animation "amateurish looking", but other reviewers stated that the film was "nicely animated". Tom Jacomb, line producer for Vanguard Animation, said that the biggest difficulties whilst making the film was the detail required for the birds' feathers. He stated that "most — no, all — our problems were feathers",

By December 2003, Ewan McGregor joined the cast along with Ben Kingsley, Jim Broadbent, Rupert Everett, Hugh Laurie, John Hurt and Ricky Gervais. In April 2004, John Cleese and Tim Curry joined in. Olivia Williams joined in the cast. Kingsley and Everett later dropped out of the film.

Valiant received mixed reviews from critics. The film received a 32% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 114 reviews with an average rating of 5/10. The site's consensus reads: "Valiant has a good collection of voice talents, but the story is strictly by the numbers". On Metacritic, the film has a 45 out of 100 based on 27 critic reviews indicating "mixed or average reviews". The film grossed $19,478,106 in the U. S. and $42,268,782 internationally, which puts it at a worldwide total of $61,746,888. Although it wasn't a box office flop, the film held the record for lowest box office of a CGI animated film, until this record was later beaten in 2006 by Doogal, the American re dubbed version of The Magic Roundabout.

The musical score was composed by George Fenton and mostly performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The orchestral music is in keeping with the military theme of the film, such as through "March of the R. H. P. S.", performed by The Central Band of the Royal Air Force.