More than two decades after Chicken Run was released (Aardman Animation’s first feature length movie back in 2000) comes this sequel that reunites us with brave and loveable chickens Rocky and Ginger and their avian pals.
In the first stop-motion animated movie, they escaped their chicken farm Great Escape-style to avoid being made into pies by nasty Mrs Tweedy, and in this follow up they actually have to break into a chicken farm to rescue their teenage daughter Molly, who has run off to seek adventure and finds rather more than she bargained for.
With Mission: Impossible-esque sequences and a villain’s lair that could work in any James Bond movie, this is a bigger, flashier adventure than the original, but nonetheless retains a lot of Chicken Run’s charm, British humour and infectious feathery fun.
While grown-ups may find it odd that Rocky and Ginger are voiced by different actors (they were voiced by Mel Gibson and Julia Sawalha in Chicken Run, but Levi and Newton take on the roles here), there are some cast members who make a welcome return including Jane Horrocks as Babs, Staunton as Bunty and Miranda Richardson as Mrs Tweedy, and they are joined by The Last Of Us’s Bella Ramsey, who is a treat as headstrong Molly, and Josie Sedgwick-Davies as her new friend Frizzle.
As eye-catching as the original but slicker in style, it loses a little bit of the first movie’s pure heart, but is nonetheless a witty, daft and delirious film for the whole family.
Is Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...
The chickens do find themselves in danger at the chicken farm which – spoiler alert! – is a factory for chicken nuggets in disguise, but even the most dangerous situations are resolved quite quickly.
Very young viewers may find Mrs Tweedy scary, and also the machines at her factory. There are also some robots that could frighten younger viewers, and at one point some characters are seemingly under mind control which the youngest of audiences may not understand.
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