Those chickens are up to something. Again. Chicken Run, the subverted classic which has Mel Gibson voicing a jaded and failed flying rooster was something of a nostalgia spin for those who considered Wallace and Gromit a tad too mainstream. For those living in the real world and accepting the second-place spot Chicken Run has since grown accustomed to, a sequel which ditches half of the voice actors which made the mighty original is a tough pill to swallow. Yet here it is. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget knows it cannot rewrite the past but also accepts it has nothing new to show. Stomach-churning realisations are made when Zachary Levi and Thandiwe Newton rock up. The heart has been ripped, and the limbs of Jane Horrocks’ role as Babs are still attached. A Frankenstein’s monster of an experience lay in the bloodied hands of Aardman.
If only their clay shortage had struck before the failed Shazam star had signed on the dotted line. Flashbacks and a bit of narration showing the wonderful pop culture references and charming animation style of the first set a high bar. Immediately heading into some choppy and tranquil lives, putting the past behind them is on the agenda but disaster is inevitable. There are thick scoops of irony as Levi, the man who pleaded with social media users to watch Shazam 2, plays the rooster hellbent on continuing to live out the glory days. Move on. These characters may have secured a happy ending but the scythe of reunions is remorseless. Caricature support characters in the first film are now adapted further, demanded more from yet given the same level of dialogue.
Messy to say the least, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget strikes out with some relatively sluggish pace and comedy lines which do not land. Those Aardman charms are faded here and clunky animation does not help. Never quite playing around with the break-in and break-out differences between the two movies, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget repeats itself in all the wrong areas. Who would have thought replacing the voice cast would have such a massive impact? Not even the slate of British legends like Peter Serafinowicz, David Bradley and Timothy Spall, all enlisted through the mighty muscle of a Netflix budget, can help this one along.
Cash-ins on nostalgia become clearer and clearer – the average viewer is wiser now to it than ever before. After run-ins with Harry Potter and F.R.I.E.N.D.S., the rose-tinted glasses are set to be smashed under the boot of excess. Sam Fell has all the right bells and whistles attached to this one, his direction solid and worked over well – likely remembered from his days at the helm of Flushed Away – but a disconnect is apparent. Imelda Staunton and Horrocks are left in as padding to the otherwise lacklustre attempt to rekindle a love of British cinema. Doing so with Norbit star Newton and flapping box office toxin Levi is a surefire way of sapping any life out of it – and it works. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is disastrously boring and has no sense of character or charisma to it.
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