Review: Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)

Coming 23 years after the original film, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget has the sort of inventive stop-motion animation, slapstick humour, and adventurous storytelling that is likely to appease children and their parents who stumble across the film on Netflix. The film plays as a legacy sequel to the original film, with the hen Ginger (Thandiwe Newtown) and her mate, the rooster Rocky (Zachary Levi), having to rescue their daughter (Bella Ramsey) from a meat-packing plant set up to seem like an idyllic paradise for chickens.

Dawn of the Nugget is safe and easygoing, with likeable characters and a stylistic approach that has real artistry to it, even if the artistry is in service of pratfalls, movie references, and deeply-dry British humour. What it doesn’t have is the timeless appeal of the original Chicken Run, nor the charismatic vocal work of Mel Gibson and Julia Sawalha, who lend real personality to the claymation creations of the original film.

Don’t get me wrong: I understand why Mel Gibson would be a tough sell as a voice in a children’s film in 2023. His fall from grace won him few friends in Hollywood and his gravelly voice at aged 68 would likely be ill-suited to Rocky, the bold American rooster and mate to Ginger, at this current moment, even if one were willing to overlook the personal baggage that Gibson would bring to the role. But replacing Gibson with Zachary Levi, a likeable actor who plays a goofball better than most contemporary actors in Hollywood, is a downgrade.

In the original Chicken Run, Rocky is a wildcard, a charming, willful American with Han Solo swagger and a heart of gold, even if it takes him a misstep or two to do the right thing in the end. He’s unpredictable, even a bit dangerous, the complete antithesis of the placid hens at Mrs. Tweedy’s farm. Gibson is perfect for the role since his confidence and almost psychotic energy had a sexy allure and danger that was perfect for the character you wanted to root for, but didn’t entirely trust. Levi is likeable, but all too safe. Rocky is a neutered figure in this sequel, sapped of the energy that made him so entertaining in the first place, and Levi’s casting contributes to this neutering that the narrative enacts.

Dawn of the Nugget also replaces Julia Sawalha with Thandiwe Newton, a great actress with a good voice who just doesn’t have the proper exasperation and concern as Ginger that Sawalha did. Despite being essentially unknown outside of British television, Sawalha gives one of the most memorable vocal performances of the early 2000s in Chicken Run as the emboldened, pragmatic, overly idealistic Ginger, whose every line is tinged with concern and intelligence. Newton is an appealing actor, and she’s got a classy, intelligent voice to boot, but she doesn’t capture either Ginger’s overwhelming idealism or her self doubt.

Newton’s and Levi’s casting is less a matter of choosing the right vocal performers for the role than casting name actors, which is a necessary box to check for animated entertainment today. This sort of crass commercial calculation is a key element that holds this movie back from being a modern classic like the original film.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Run, despite its modest charms, is very much a movie of 2023. The original Chicken Run was an animated film inspired by World War II POW movies, drenched in dry British humour, and mostly free of pop-culture references, time-sensitive jokes, pop music, and anything that would freeze the film in its moment. Viewed in 2024, it plays as well as it first did in 2000 because there’s nothing about it tied to the year 2000—Gibson’s casting excepted.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget has the appealing animation, the amusing jokes, the dry humour, but it also has pop song interludes, new characters who are cynically constructed to appease to 2023 expectations, and a plot that is a bit too much of a retread. Compared to other animated comedies from recent years, it’s par for the course, about as good as what you get from most DreamWorks or Disney or even Pixar movies these days. But compared to the original film, it’s a disappointment, revealing the state of Hollywood animation in 2024.

6 out of 10

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023, UK)

Directed by Sam Fell; written by Karey Kirkpatrick, John O’Farrell, Rachel Tunnard, based on a story by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell; starring Thandiwe Newton, Zachary Levi, Bella Ramsey, Imelda Staunton, Lynn Ferguson, David Bradley, Jane Horrocks, Romesh Ranganathan, Daniel Mays, Josie Sedgwick-Davies, Peter Serafinowicz, Nick Mohammed, Miranda Richardson.

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