All the way back in 2000, Aardman (already a set-in-stone national treasure here in the UK) finally broke big on the world stage with Chicken Run, heralded as an instant animated classic and still to date the highest grossing stop-motion film ever released. 23 years later, and the long-belated sequel, subtitled Dawn of the Nugget, has finally released (with the help of Netflix) with a hell of a legacy to live up to. Though this second helping of poultry-based comedy and adventures is unlikely to have the same sort of staying power as its predecessor, it’s still a fun family caper that may feel a bit paint-by-numbers but has just enough killer gags to make up for it.
After a quick recap of the events of the original we’re reintroduced to chicken heroes Ginger (Thandiwe Newton, replacing Julia Sawalha) and Rocky (Zachary Levi, replacing Mel Gibson), now living on a peaceful island where only chickens reside, no humans to threaten them. Instead, the stress of the opening comes from the pair’s new daughter, the ultra-adventurous Molly (Bella Ramsey) whose desire to leave the island eventually reintroduces all the chickens to the vengeful Mrs Tweedy (Miranda Richardson) when Molly stumbles upon her surreal factory farm, built to turn chickens into nuggets at industrial scale.
With Molly in danger, it’s up to the chickens to, this time, break *in* to a sinister farm, ditching the WW2-esque prison-break riff of the original for a more classic Bond pastiche, complete with an evil lair that would feel right at home as a Thunderbirds playset. New director Sam Fell has a lot of fun with these technological advancements, making brilliant use of scale and finding some really inspired visual jokes within all the retro-sci-fi designs. He even manages to retain a decent chunk of the more macabre tone from the original, though the brighter and shinier visuals do detract from the attempts to make you feel genuine peril.
On top of all the slapstick stuff, there are some nice one-liners from all the old favourites like the ditzy Babs (Jane Horrocks) and old windbag Fowler (David Bradley). In the leads, Newton and Levi do ok jobs, but they don’t bring the same spark as their predecessors. It creates a slight lifelessness right at the heart of the film and, though Ramsey and the rest of the supporting cast are a lot of fun, it’s this that you feel most fundamentally holds Dawn of the Nugget back, especially as there really was no good reason to ditch Sawalha.
Obviously, the kids won’t know or care who the voices behind the chickens are (though I’m not sure how big a child audience this two-decades on sequel will have, literally everyone in my showing seemed to be in their early thirties), and they will enjoy how much genuine adventure is packed into this thing. It whips along at a hell of a pace, and it is still a joy to see just how expressive and smooth Aardman can make plasticine seem, with their animation skills still second-to-none.
Though it’s a mostly very sunny film, both on the island and inside the eerily jolly, almost Barbieland-esque factory farm, Dawn of the Nugget makes perfect sense to land around Christmas. There’s something inherent about Aardman that just works better when the family’s gathered round and there’s enough in the way of thrills and laughs here to be an easy holiday favourite. It might not be reinventing the wheel like its predecessor did, and it could do with a bit more actual tension, but as an introduction to the venerable claymation house for a new generation, it’s got enough going for it to make an egg-cellent first impression.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 
I agree, it’s an enjoyable sequel but is missing a lot of the dark undertones of the first film, that gave it poignancy with its mature themes. Which are equally as important for kids to experience as comedy.