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Oh, it is great to have Aardman back in cinemas. It’s only four years since the release of their last film A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon but it feels longer than that since they have launched something that really hit home. Of course it takes a while to make one of these films so the turn around is probably quite good. This said we are promised a movie featuring the studio’s poster boys Wallace and Gromit next year, and it is nice not to have the wait again.

It is also twenty three years since Chicken Run, which was actually Aardman’s first feature film. (Since then there have only been five other claymation movies, plus two computer generated ones – Flushed Away and Arthur Christmas.) The time between the original and its sequel has lead to some casting changes which have caused quite a stir. Julia Sawalha, who played lead hen Ginger, has been replaced by Thandiwe Newton with the reason it seems being that Sawalha no longer sounds as young as she did back then. This has understandably lead to accusations of ageism but while I love Sawalha and always will (mostly because of her work in Press Gang) if her voice is not comparable then I can perhaps see where they are coming from. Newton is actually only four years younger so let’s assume it was genuinely an artistic decision. She is also a bigger star which I suspect has played into it. I have to say that Newton’s Ginger doesn’t sound a huge amount like Sawalha’s either but there it is.

Capturing the familiar vocals better is Zachary Levi who takes over from Mel Gibson as Rocky the Rooster. Levi has really picked up Gibson’s inflection in the character. Of course for Gibson it isn’t so much a case of him being *too old for this $#*¥ as much as the actor now just being too much of a $#*¥ so even if Levi sounded like Donald Duck we’d have been good with the recasting. Many of the rest of the first film’s performers have returned, including Jane Horrocks, Lynn Ferguson and Imelda Staunton, which has only compounded the discussion, although oddly no one seems to be commenting on Romesh Ranganathan and Daniel Mays taking over from Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels as the rats Nick and Fletcher.

*for the benefit of younger readers, this is a Lethal Weapon reference rather than just me being crass.

With respect for those involved in the changes (apart from Gibson), what really matters is what has stayed the same and Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget has just the charm as what it follows. Once again this film has a decidedly British sensibility laid over a very American genre. Then it was an escape movie, now it is a heist film. Like before we also still have funny one liners and nice visual humour and the joy of seeing the whole thing played out by plasticine chickens is not diminished. The animation does seem a little slicker this time which perhaps steals it of something but the medium has moved on and if anything this makes the artistry all the more astounding. There is a CGI sheen, and apparently even a couple of entirely CGI shots, but this has still mostly been put together using the most precise model animation and in that sense it is amazing. Netflix have been involved in the production this time (and it is out of the cinemas and online already) and like with Doctor Who, the new involvement of a big American streaming service has shown in the budget. Aardman have long been the masters of this type of filmmaking though, Chicken Run remains the highest grossing stop motion animation film of all time, and it is great to see them continuing to push the medium.

The plot, following quickly on from the end of the first film has Ginger, Rocky, Fowler and the ‘girls’ living a peaceful life in the bird sanctuary they escaped to until the first child born into their secluded community changes everything. I myself have moved on in my life since 2000 and now the message I get from this is that kids should always listen to their parents, but young Molly is curious about the outside world (it actually reminded me of Levi’s other animated film Tangled here) and adventure inevitably ensues. (Although the message of Tangled is definitely not about trusting your parents, please don’t think I think that.)

I have to say that just as with Chicken Run, and all of Aardman’s movies, I got totally swept up in the chase and the action. It might not be as quite witty as the studio’s best work, for me The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists remains their high point, but it is still better than the majority of other animated family films being made today. The fact that The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the second most lucrative film of 2023, nestled between Barbie and number one and Oppenheimer at number three, shows that the right things are not always rewarded but I would most definitely recommend this, whether you see it in the last few theatres it is showing in or catch it at home. Yep, it is wonderful to have these people, and their bantam cooler kings, back.

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The Ripley Factor:

One of the main factors of the first Chicken Run film was around the impact of a new male presence in an almost entirely female community. The feminine energy remains high here with the decision to make Rocky and Ginger’s offspring a girl. As before Rocky is as much of a hinderance as a help and it is definitely the women taking the lead. The antagonist was also a woman last time, with a brow beaten husband beside her, and they have most certainly kept this element too.