The pesky freedom fighting chickens are back in
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. Following their escape from the clutches of Mrs Tweedy and the farm she ran like a prisoner camp, the chickens are enjoying life on an island overlooking the scene of their torture. Strong-willed Ginger and accident-prone Rocky are happily rearing little Molly, a chip off her parents’ block. All is calm, until human activity is spotted across the water back on the mainland. Ginger calls the community to action – to lie low – spurred on by maternal responsibilities. But Molly’s curiosity spurs her to investigate and before long the feathered crew are breaking into a farm … or is it a chicken-friendly theme park? And who’s the boss behind this new venture?
Watching back the original
Chicken Run (
BBC One Sunday 10 at 14:00, BBC Three Friday 15 at 19:00,
or Netflix) it’s clear that the animators and cinematographers went to extraordinary lengths to light the sets and create convincing backgrounds. My copy of
Chicken Run was on VHS: a lot has changed since Aardman Animations’ first feature-length was released in 2000. While the characters in
Dawn of the Nugget are all still stop motion plasticine figures, much of the background and set is computer generated. The end result gives the production a more modern feel.
Some of the original voice artists have been replaced (Thandiwe Newton and Zachary Levi taking over Ginger and Rocky from Julia Sawalha and Mel Gibson), but it’s good to hear Jane Horrocks back as the fast-knitting Babs. Fowler still embarks on military reminiscences to any captive audience. The cunning rats – Nick and Fletcher – continue to rescue the chickens from tight situations. And watch out for the new scouse character Frizzle voiced by Josie Sedgwick-Davies.
While the plot is less tight than the original, there are plenty of great one-liners, hare-brained contraptions, and visual gags. Rocky’s ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (and sometimes the reverse) still gives him unfair moments of heroism in contrast with Ginger’s lower key constant stubborn perseverance to protect her offspring. There’s a Mission Impossible-style sequence complete with a suitably orchestrated score, and an explosive finale that could have stolen its storyboard from a Bond film with the villain getting their comeuppance while their lair experiences what SpaceX would call a ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’.
It may be a cockamamie tale about hens standing up against humans, but Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a decent animated sequel that will entertain adults returning to a childhood favourite, and win over a new generation to this tale of feathered fightback. Available to stream on Netflix from Friday 15 December.
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