Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)

There had to have been trepidation amongst slivers of excitement when Aardman Animation announced a collaboration with Netflix to bring us a sequel to Chicken Run (2000). I'm not sure I'd heard anything about it whatsoever until very shortly before its risible cinematic release, crashing straight onto the streaming giant far too quickly. However, as I always like to say, we wouldn't get some of these releases at all if it wasn't for Netflix and other platforms, and although they do self-produce plenty of tripe, there have been some crumbs of comfort. By the time I sat down to watch this with my daughter, she'd seen it six times. It took plenty of persuasion to get her to watch the original years ago for some reason, but once she did, she hasn't looked back. She's also been at me for ages to sit down and watch it with her and my bitterness at not making it to the cinema to see it eventually had to take a back seat. Ginger and Rocky have a baby chicken called Molly and we see her growing up in an early montage which is very well done, before Dawn of the Nugget gets on with the business of being a Chicken Run film. This time, instead of breaking out of a farm, they're breaking into Fun-Land Farm; a seemingly idyllic paradise for chickens with inevitably sinister undertones as well as a returning villain from the original. What- or who- hasn't returned is more interesting. Julia Sawalha is replaced by Thandie Newton as Ginger and Mel Gibson has been replaced by Zachary Levi as the voice of Rocky, which doesn't apprehend the piece as badly as one might have feared. Characters like Babs, Mac and Fowler have also returned, and are instrumental (well some of them) in the breaking out of innocent chickens from Fun-Land. The main reason for the crew heading into the compound in the first place is that Molly inadvertently manages to land in harms way whilst rebelling with a friend Frizzle who she meets whilst flouting her parent's rules and wandering out of their Chicken utopia. The opening portion of the film is pretty by the numbers and I was left worried that the film wasn't going to get close to justifying its existence. Thankfully, once the heist like break-in begins (which is not long into the film) Dawn of the Nugget clicks into gear. The influences are worn on the film's sleeve (just like the original which was an unapologetic take on 1963's The Great Escape) and the break-in itself is absolutely glorious. Nodding to everything from Ocean's Eleven (2001) to the Mission: Impossible and Bond franchises, the middle section of Dawn of the Nugget is a glorious exercise in nostalgic excitement within a plasticine animation. Although if held at gun point to answer the question did we need another Chicken Run film you'd have to say no, the fact that Dawn of the Nugget isn't a let down is impressive within itself. The fact that it nods to Powell and Pressbuger's A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and then by association Aardman's own Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008) is absolute genius. So far from being a dud (although let's be honest, when have Aardman let us down) the Chicken Run sequel is something to very much enjoy, and although we certainly don't need a third outing, I'd be lying if I said I'd be disgusted by the idea. As for the young lady, she sat with a cat on her lap for the duration of the film, happily reading out every line of dialogue before it was revealed on screen, and plot spoiling repeatedly until about halfway through when she realised she actually wanted genuine reactions from me to revelations on screen. She stands by her ten out of ten rating after seven viewings, and although I wouldn't go that far, Dawn of the Nugget is a splendidly enjoyable way to enjoy an evening. 7.8/10