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Fears recently arose that the future of Aardman Animations might be in jeopardy, as the ingenious British studio was in danger of running out of its favoured brand of modelling clay. While Aardman sets about replenishing its supply, it might also want to restock with some fresh ideas; its latest creation Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget offers barely a peck of the old inspiration.
The original 2000 Chicken Run proved that hen’s teeth were not so rare after all, its most engaging sight gag being the beakfuls of those little white dental pegs that are an enduring Aardman leitmotif. The follow-up begins with Chicken Run’s fugitive fowl happily free from captivity and settled in an idyllic island haven. Lead couple Ginger and Rocky (now voiced by Thandiwe Newton and Shazam!’s Zachary Levi) have hatched a plucky daughter (Bella Ramsey), who yearns to explore the outside world. She is lured by what appears to be a nearby avian paradise but is really something more sinister — a processing plant disguised as a pleasure dome, where birds are brainwashed into blank-eyed submission.
The first film cleverly played on Aardman’s trademark British eccentricity by channelling an archaic strain of homegrown cinema — the stiff-upper-lip POW escape drama in the manner of The Colditz Story. By contrast, this sequel for Netflix is seemingly designed to be much more internationally accessible. Directed by Sam Fell, who co-directed Aardman’s 2006 CGI project Flushed Away, it offers nattily designed but rarely surprising variations on the perennial Bond-villain’s-fortress staple so exhaustively sent up in Pixar’s The Incredibles — with hefty parodic doses of Mission: Impossible and nudges at The Truman Show and Squid Game.
Briskly cheerful, but lacking the sharp deadpan wit that made Aardman famous, this episode is a warmed-over broiler that offers only paltry pleasures.
★★☆☆☆
In cinemas now and on Netflix from December 15