Aardman Animations and its partners brought us “Chicken Run” 24 years ago, a smash hit, stop-motion film conceived by Aardman founders Peter Lord and “Wallace and Gromit” creator Nick Park.
The film tells the story of an egg farm in Yorkshire, where the chickens, led by the defiant hen Ginger (Julia Sawalha) and combative American rooster Rocky Rhodes (Mel Gibson) band together to fight farmers Mr. and Mrs Tweedy (Tony Haygarth and Miranda Richardson) and escape their POW-camp like surroundings.
This new film “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” is another Aardman production, directed by Sam Fell (“ParaNorman”) with a screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick (“Chicken Run”), John O’Farrell, “Chicken Run”) and Rachel Tunnard (“Military Wives”). Beginning where the previous effort ended, at a bird sanctuary, we find that Ginger (Thandiwe Newton, “Westworld”) and Rocky (Zachary Levi, “Shazam!”) have had a daughter named Molly (Bella Ramsey, “The Last of Us”), who is as rebellious and combative as her parents. When Molly, ahem, flies the coop to investigate a mechanized chicken farm across from the sanctuary, Ginger, Rocky and two rats named Fetch (Daniel Mays) and Nick (Romesh Ranganathan) and several other chickens follow to bring her safely back. The new chicken farm has high-tech security featuring multiple guards, gates, barbed wire, electrified fences, cameras and robot ducks with laser eyes. Inside the farm, chickens are equipped with mind-altering neck manacles and left to play in a fake, amusement theme park-like environment until it is time to march into the ovens and be transformed into breadcrumb-coated, fast-food nuggets.
If that sounds pretty grim, it is. In a lift from H.G. Wells “The Time Machine”, the chickens with the mind-controlling collars behave like the Eloi when Mrs. Tweedy (Richardson, returning) and her new cohort, the mad Dr. Fry (Nick Mohammed, “Bridget Jones’ Baby”) summon them for the slaughter. In another sequence, Rocky ends up in a high-tech trash bin (stop me if you’ve seen this before). Starting out with the rather shrill power pop song “My Sweet Baby” over the opening credits by Paloma Faith, “The Dawn of the Nugget” is by design almost a remake. But it is great fun.
The existential problem Ginger, Rocky and their friends face is that they live in “a world that finds chickens so delicious.” The film combines stop-motion with CGI and for a moment 2D animation. Once again we are in a poultry knockoff of England with natives and at least one character from Scotland (along with their cute idiomatic expressions (i.e., “the very dab”). Molly, who finds the idea of a chicken in a bucket seductive, looks like a mirror image of her mother. In the evil chicken factory, Molly makes a ditzy friend named Frizzle (Josie Sedgwick-Davies in an auspicious debut), and together they try to escape. After reuniting with Molly, Ginger and Rocky and their crew then decide to save all the chickens, Along with Richardson, the delightful Imelda Staunton and Jane Horrocks return as Bunty and Babs, respectively. The film’s verbal and physical humor is drenched in film and cartoon history. The great David Bradley (“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”) plays RAF veteran Fowler this time. The music is by Henry Gregson-Williams. Yes, this “Chicken” is the very dab.
(“Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” contains suggestive humor and chickens in peril)
Rated PG. On Netflix. Grade: A-