The idea of making a sequel to Aardman’s first feature has been floating around since that film initially came out, and considering modern trends towards legacy sequels and the like, it would make sense for them to attempt it around now. It helps that their last film, the Shaun The Sheep sequel, was bloomin’ fantastic and a high benchmark for a studio that’s already a legend in the industry. However, for both good and bad, this is quite a different clucker from the original.
Where the first film was basically The Great Escape but with chickens, this leans into more of an action spy aesthetic, with Ginger and her team of freedom fighters breaking into Fun-Land Farms and saving the chickens from getting mashed into nuggets.
While the presentation for this new genre pastiche is done well, with Harry Gregson-Williams having fun toying around with familiar espionage themes in the soundtrack, with that shift also comes a shift in tone. The first film was exceptionally moody, putting in the effort to evoke the dark bleakness of a prison camp, and its set pieces like the pie machine and climbing the trail of the giant mechanical bird were quite thrilling.
By contrast, the bulk of this film is bright and sunny and almost-obnoxiously colourful. Aardman’s knack for set detail holds true, with the chickens’ island village looking particularly gorgeous, but as a sequel to a film that banked on such murky tones, it’s quite the adjustment.
As is the adjustment to the new cast. Some names have made a thankful return (Imelda Staunton as the hearty Bunty, Lynn Ferguson as the Scottish tinkerer Mac, Jane Horrocks as the blissfully unaware Babs, even Miranda Richardson comes back as Mrs. Tweedy), whereas the main two have been replaced. On one hand, I get not asking Mel Gibson to return as Rocky; dude gets an alarming amount of work as is, because it’s apparently going to take a Passion Of The Christ sequel before people remember why we left him behind in the first place. But on the other, Zachary Levi as Rocky and Thandiwe Newton as Ginger… I mean, they aren’t even trying to sound similar to their predecessors. It’s been a minute since I last watched the original, but it was such a staple of my childhood that I have a fair amount of the visuals and voices devoted to memory, and it was quite distracting how off they sounded throughout. They’re still good performances, don’t get me wrong, but necessarily as these characters.
But for as jarring as the adjustment was (for me, at least), things turned out pretty well once I made it. The voice cast still fit their respective niches, and with the introduction of Bella Ramsey as Ginger and Rocky’s daughter Molly, the story about the chicken once determined to find freedom is now in a position of withholding that freedom from her child for her own protection… well, it works. Hell, it even pulls the legacy sequel trick and make it primarily about the next generation and ‘where do we go from here?’ that fits with the amount of time has passed between features.
As for the presentation, it manages to reach its own kind of unsettling through the other side, as it portrays the chickens in Fun-Land Farms as being in their own little Pleasure Island. The depiction of these humanised animals forced into a docile position so that they welcome the grinder is legitimately chilling, and shows that Karey Kirkpatrick’s writing is still as willing to delve into the darkness as back when he worked on the first Chicken Run. Then again, this is the same guy who delivered the low-key banger Smallfoot; he’s been exercising those muscles pretty consistently.
It's honestly not that realistic to expect this to completely measure up to the original; even Aardman, for as consistent as their track record has been, isn’t that perfect. In fact, this is honestly one of their weakest features, as while the aesthetics and story have their enjoyably dark moments, it sometimes struggles to maintain that edge and just comes across as goofy in a less-than-fitting way. But even with its growing pains and occasional slips in tone, this is still quite entertaining and, if nothing, it shows that Aardman are still masters of the craft, if not necessarily the stories they’re telling with it.
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