'Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget' Is A Fun Trip Back To The Chicken Land
Stop-motion animation is lovingly brought to life. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a colorful world of clay where the very thumbprint of the artists can be possibly seen on screen. Dawn of the Nugget has thematic elements of maturity. Molly (Bella Ramsey) wants to be free of the paradise the chickens have made for themselves. She's curious to see what's on the other side of their little town. Yet her parents say no to her requests to venture out. If you've seen the first movie, you'd know why it's dangerous for Molly to cross town. If you haven't seen the first movie, the sequel does a cliffs notes version of flashbacks to catch everyone up, although you don't really need it since the plot is so simple.
Outside the little chicken village is a world full of farmers who want to kill the chickens and make a profit. After narrowly escaping Mrs. Tweedy's (Miranda Richardson) farm for the first time, the chicks don't want to put themselves back in danger again. Dawn of the Nugget has a maturity to it where the motivation of Molly's mother, Ginger (Thandiwe Newton), is to keep her daughter safe. Any parent can identify with that. When Ginger hears word of a local truck transporting chickens to a nearby farm, Ginger's initial idea is to have everyone hide from the trucks. She doesn't choose to interfere by rescuing the chickens being taken to an undisclosed location. That kind of rebellious attitude existed in the old days when Ginger had to save every chicken's life from Mrs. Tweedy. Now, as a mother, Ginger focuses solely on the safety of her child.
However, Ginger's ability to take action is soon reignited when Molly decides to venture out on her own. From there, she gets captured, and something close to the same plot from the original Chicken Run plays out. Chickens get seized, they need to break out, the bad guys get punished, and the chickens find a new lease on life. However, instead of breaking out, our chicken friends will be breaking in. After Molly gets captured, Ginger and her partner Rocky (Zachary Levi) venture out to rescue her. The mission to save Molly will be hard. The scale from the first film is raised to up the stakes. Instead of being stuck on a little chicken farm, the chickens face off against an elaborate large-scale death factory.
Chicken Run is a kid's film with a dark premise. It's about saving chickens from being chopped to pieces. The first film features an early scene where Mrs. Tweedy wants to teach the chickens a lesson, so she decapitates one in front of all of them. The scene is shot with a silhouetted shadow of Mrs. Tweedy's ax being raised. The camera then pans up before the ax is lowered to the victim's neck. The sequel has a scene that's equally as dark.
The chickens in the farm factory are equipped with collars that take over their brain, making them dumb and happy. In this factory, everything is made to look like an amusement park to give the chickens the illusion that they're in a safe, joyful place. One chicken is called up within the coop to enter a golden staircase that follows up to a bright, shining sun. Behind that sun is a curtain leading to a machine that grinds chickens, turning them into nuggets to be served in a bucket. We don't see the chicken get killed, but we can hear the gears at work off-screen.
Like many animated films, Chicken Run 2 has more underneath the surface than simple gags. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a film about wanting to be free. To break from your parent's constraints so you can see the world for yourself. Many teenagers might share a similarity in Molly's motivations. Although Chicken Run Dawn of the Nugget is marketed for children, teenagers, and adults could find more things in common with it than the little kids can. Whether you're a teen or a parent, it's easy to relate to Molly's desire to go to a bigger world—or Ginger's need to keep her daughter safe.
Maybe it was difficult, but her parents may not have been ready to tell Molly about the horrors of Mrs. Tweedy's farm. If Molly had been properly warned, perhaps she wouldn't have wandered off. Why Ginger and Rocky said nothing is understandable but questionable. Wouldn't the parents warn their kid to stay away from the outside world?
When the chickens do their rescuing, the film becomes a multi-structured narrative that lacks some of the refinements of the original. The plot of Chicken Run worked because the setting was so minimal. Everything took place on one chicken farm we're eager to have our heroes break away from. The sequel goes from a chicken island to a large-scale farm while cutting to three characters at once. It's following the path of Molly, who's a prisoner in the farm factory. Rocky who breaks into the factory to save Molly. And Ginger who arranges a plan to bust her daughter out of there with the help of the other chickens.
The film is funny, warm, mildly disturbing, and a noble sequel to the original. Dawn of the Nugget doesn't reach the same highs the first film does, as it can only take its premise so far. How often can you have chickens saving other chickens from death farms until the story gets played out? Twice is enough to play the same premise. By the middle to third act, the film plays almost exactly like the first film, even re-introducing Mrs. Tweedy as the villain once more. Copying what worked from the first film is all fine and good when it's not overdone. Case in point, The Incredibles 2 which copied everything The Incredibles did down to the last detail. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget yanks a lot from the first film. The third act, in particular, is an almost beat-for-beat remix of movie one. Luckily, it doesn't pluck so much from the first film to make the sequel unoriginal. The movie doesn't end exactly the way the first one did, and even rooms open for more sequels if it doesn't take another twenty-two years to get the film off the ground.
What makes Dawn of the Nugget work is its tender relatability and strong characters. We enjoy the company of Rocky because he is the optimist who always thinks or charms his way past certain problems. Ginger is a gentle strategist who knows how to be a leader. And Molly is the curious kid who wants to go on an adventure. Between the antics of chickens freeing their friends to the wonderful chemistry between animated puppets brought lovingly and smoothly to life by hand, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a sequel that succeeds as meaningful entertainment that builds upon its material even if it can't top the original.
