Chicken Run : La Menace nuggets

Say what you want about the man but Mel Gibson is sorely missed, that was one of many mistakes this movie made. Flat, boring, pretty, but not fun. The original stands as a childhood favorite that I've watched with my kid many times but nugget of whatever, will be forgotten in a week. Yet another in a long list of agenda filled Netflix blunders. When will they learn? (Side note about Netflix as a production company: finally canceling my subscription after ANOTHER price hike, removing Christmas movies around the holidays, while other services put them behind pay walls is just a greedy, disgusting practice imo, streaming is out of control and people are finding alternatives)

Aardman Animations, personally, is a hit or miss for me as in the past, they have created some great works like Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and so forth. But at the same time, they have made some pretty mediocre or pretty bad works too. "Chicken Run" is one of my favorite stop-motion movies as I really like the characters, the animation, and the narrative. With this sequel coming out after many years, it was entertaining but it was a bit underwhelming.

Throughout, the stop-motion animation, character models, and colors are amazing as Aardman continues to provide great clay animation. Aardman always provides some great animation and the models, colors, sound designs, and the movements are all excellent. We get to see the same characters from the previous movie and it was fun to see them communicate, move around and observe their actions throughout. The voice performances from the cast members were solid as they provided some good voice works, although a few voice performances weren't great. The soundtrack is pretty good and there are some decent humor moments that I chuckled at.

With the narrative continuing from the previous movie, the narrative explores some new concepts and territories within the setting and characters and there are some aspects that were interesting but some not so much. Certain new concepts that were explored I felt weren't strong enough and at times, it really feels like a rehash of the first movie. On the characters, there are new characters that are introduced but unfortunately, none of the new characters weren't really interesting since they felt a bit dull and kind of annoying at times. Because this is a new cast, I personally felt while the original characters are still fun, the chemistry and energy of what made them fun from the first movie felt a bit lacking. The soundtrack is okay and there are some solid dialogue moments while being a bit clunky.

Despite my gripes, I still was interested to see where the movie goes and for what it is, it's a decent sequel. Overall, it is entertaining and it's nice to see the characters again, but I wish it could have been better.

There are some prequels or sequels that no one asked for, but end up being happy that they happened anyway.

This sadly isn't one one of them.

I was already upset by the fact that many of the core voice actors were being replaced. Mel Gibson I could understand for obvious reasons, but the excuse for Julie Sawalha's exclusion was not acceptable. I do believe the real reason was because Sawalha is no longer famous, while Thandi (or Thandiwe) Newton, her replacement, is a big name in the industry. This is a growing trend in modern animation where famous actors are favoured to voice cartoon characters rather than actual voice actors.

At one point Ginger fearfully says "that voice!" before the reveal of the return of Mrs Tweedy. It would have been extremely awkward if Miranda Richardson was no longer voicing the villain.

The story itself is a little too similar to the first Chicken Run and the animation looks too shiny and CGIed, despite most of it being clay-animation. The stakes were not really as high, and the characters were not as fleshed out as they were in the first film.

My favourite character is still Fowler, as he was still hilarious. And unlike the new voices for the other main characters, David Bradley does a great job here.

The humour in the first film was intelligent and witty. But despite most of the film still being proudly British (even including a chicken character with a Scouse accent) , the magic and the passion found in the first film has dampened down quite a lot here.

Kids will no doubt enjoy it. But after 23 years, I wasn't all that impressed.

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.

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.