Pollitos en fuga: El origen de los nuggets

This sequel to 'Chicken Run' arrives after 23 years, but don't worry, being animated the returning cast haven't aged a bit! Although the story picks up where the original left off, this is an entirely new adventure and you don't really have to see the first film to follow the story, although it is highly recommended. The opening to 'Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget' recaps the events of the first film in a nutshell.

The chickens are living happily on an island away from humans, and Ginger and Rocky starts a family. Their daughter is Molly. No sooner has she become a teenager than she becomes curious about the world and what lies on the other side of the lake. When trucks arrive and start clearing the forest, the chickens devise a plan to shelter themselves from human vision, but Molly wants to explore...and so she does.

She befriends a chicken named Frizzle, and together the head to Fun-Land Farms where they believe chickens to live happy lives, according to an advert they saw. Off course the farms are not what it seems, and they soon get into trouble.

It's up to Ginger, Rocky and some of their friends to save them. Last time they broke out of a chicken farm; this time they're breaking in. A familiar antagonist from the first film returns, as well, but I won't spoil it for you.

I enjoyed the stop-motion animation, the characters, their adventures, and the humour. This is a delightful film young and old can enjoy. The film also illustrates how the younger generation are not always appreciative of what their parents went through to ensure their survival, and I don't think youngsters watching this will fully understand. These are lessons a mature audience will relate to.

As much as I enjoyed 'Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget', I enjoyed 'Chicken Run' more, because it was simpler and funnier.

After watching this movie during the day on Christmas Eve with my Mum, Dad and my brother Jordy for lunch here's my spoiler-free review of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget! As usual, I'll be talking about my thoughts, my favourite moments & comparing the other Aardman shorts and my conclusion/rating! After the 2000s original Chicken Run, we finally have a sequel all of it was claymation but there was one that wasn't! A lot of cast members from the original did not return some were recast but the voice cast that did come back were Jane Horrocks as Babs, Imelda Staunton as Bunty, Lynn Ferguson as Mac & a surprise return was Miranda Richardson as Mrs Tweedy! I waited this long to write my review so I can be honest about it earlier in 2023 I wrote a spoiler-free review for Star Wars: Visions Vol. II Episode IV: I Am Your Mother which I enjoyed very much! Comparing this to Star Wars, Early Man, Shaun the Sheep and Wallace & Gromit (which is finally getting a new film after we lost Peter Sallis back in 2017 6 years ago) it's not as good as the previous instalment! Overall I'm sure kids will enjoy this and I look forward to seeing what Aardman does next! That's why I gave this a 6/10! Go check out the other mini-movies while you wait for more & I'm certain that you, your kids and the whole family will be entertained by them! ;-)

Looks like the creators didn't learn anything from the failure of Early Man (2018). A successful family animation needs to engage folks of any and all ages - the first Chicken Run did to a good extent. This one didn't. Ditto Early Man.

Audiences want to see relatable settings, characters with soul, plots that are realistically challenging (not pointlessly ridiculous). So we end up with a colourful bland bright happy island commune ... overdone, unrelatable and boring. Then we get a silly super high tech robots and gadgets filled chicken farm/factory - huh? And football matches in prehistoric Early Man? Huh?

From the short documentary on 'the making of' its immediately clear the creators and team spent a massive 99% effort on the puppeting, the sets, the lighting, the movements, the look of things - which is fine, except, where's the effort on the story, the characters, the soul of the whole thing??

The director even laughed at how fun it was to give Ms Tweedy a glam look - but hello mister - did you ask yourself what the viewers want out of a once iconic scary evil character like her? A glam up look? Really?

It does seem all the people involved in this - many very competent in their area of specialty - was more focused on putting out their best on producing their area of specialty than making an animated movie that truly relates to the audience.

For instance so much technical deal and effort was made of Tweedy walking down glass steps - if the story and plotting was better it wouldn't have mattered if she was walking down milk carton cutouts with average lighting and a less smooth gait.

Do please spend more thought and effort on plotting and characters and audience impact, and less on the visual razzle dazzle.

Not as good as the first one as the setting is a lot more fantastical and silly, but it still has the Aardman charm and style with goofy looking characters and inventive contraptions. The plot clearly shows its inspiration from classic films and whilst being a bit too long, it has lots of humour, jokes and wacky adventures to keep it entertaining. The different voice actors aren't as good and the modern pop song at the start felt out of place, but the animation is great (if less hand-made) and full of vibrant colours and it has those little touches which make it something special.

Overall score = 7/10.

The film was amusing enough (lots of slapstick humour) and I enjoyed the fun details in the animations, e.g. A hot air balloon disguised as a cloud, and the factory "eye register" including a night-shift worker with very bloodshot eyes..

That being said, the storyline felt unoriginal and became flat halfway through; it was too obvious what was going to happen. Chat GPT could have written it - and given many industries' overreliance on AI, it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case.

I also have to agree with some other reviewers that the personality of main characters was watered down, especially Rocky. The original Rocky's bragging bravado was a big driving force and source of parody in the first film. The sequel's endless slapstick humour and flat characters didn't do enough for me.