Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget review: A sequel that's worth the wait
After more than 20 years, Aardman delivers a rollicking animated followup that's even more fun than the original
On paper, the original Chicken Run sounded more like the sort of film a character in a comedy movie might pitch: “It’s The Great Escape ... starring chickens!” For better or worse, Chicken Run committed to the bit, and as a result felt more hamstrung at times than more original Aardman Studios animated films. Where a Wallace And Gromit adventure would usually feel imaginative and made up on the fly, in the best way possible, Chicken Run had a template to stick to. The company’s love of elaborate contraptions, sight gags, and rural English accents kept things reasonably entertaining, but a prison break movie as a kiddie adventure felt at odds tonally with the whimsical performances.
Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget instead uses Mission: Impossible as its template, and manages to be more fun than both the original Chicken Run and most of the Mission: Impossible movies. Some significant recasting has taken place in the 23 years—yes, it has been that long—between films. Mel Gibson is completely unhireable for a family film nowadays, Julia Sawalha was told she sounded too old now, and most of the remaining cast have switched out, save for Miranda Richardson, Jane Horrocks, Imelda Staunton, and Lynn Ferguson. It’s not likely to be a jarring switch for kids too young to identify voice actors: Zachary Levi, for one, specifically imitates Gibson’s Aussie-American accent to great effect, while Thandiwe Newton, David Bradley, and the other replacements sound enough like their predecessors to make the transition smooth enough.
As the sequel begins, the escaped chickens have made a life for themselves on a sanctuary island, creating all manner of Rube Goldberg-ish machines powered by water and pulleys to do their chores. Rocky the rooster (Levi) and Ginger the chicken (Newton) now have a daughter, Molly (Bella Ramsey), from whom they have hidden the truth about how the outside world is full of larger creatures who mass-slaughter poultry for food. There’s no sense in giving the kid nightmares, after all. The only problem is that without knowing the danger, Molly insists on trying to see what else the world has to offer, and makes her own great escape off the island. One thing leads to another, and she ends up in a new high-tech fast-food nugget factory. At first, its faux theme park holding area makes the place look like a nonstop party. But like Pleasure Island in Pinocchio, its true agenda is quickly sussed by Molly, as she starts to notice just how surprisingly stupid all her fellow inmates have suddenly become.