Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023) 
Director: Sam Fell
Screenwriters: Karey Kirkpatrick, John O’Farrell, Rachel Tunnard
Starring: Bella Ramsey, Thandiwe Newton, Zachary Levi, Imelda Staunton, Lynn Ferguson, David Bradley, Jane Horrocks, Romesh Ranganathan, Daniel Mays, Josie Sedgwick-Jones, Peter Serafinowicz, Nick Mohammed, Miranda Richardson

On the surface, the original Chicken Run (2000) was a fantastic children’s movie and a feat for animated films. It was 90 minutes of pure feathery fun and righteous chicken anger. The movie had impeccable comedic timing akin to Aardman Studio’s other works like Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. These movies have a beating heart and soul that has stuck with children and adults alike because of their ability to wrap us in the warm hug of their respective worlds. And still, beneath it all lies something even deeper, something profound. For many millennials and cuspers, Chicken Run was an introduction to Marxism and revolution itself. 

As rebel chicken, Ginger (played by Julia Sawalha in 2000) rallies the hens against tyrannical farmers, she dares them to imagine a world governed only by their own will. “Don’t you get it?” she clucks, “There’s no morning headcount, no dogs, no farmers, no coops and keys, and no fences.” It’s a powerful cry for revolution – a call to rise up against injustice, no matter the cost. Though the film is filled with slapstick humor, its demand to rage against oppression transcends the children’s animation genre, cementing it as a powerful allegory for World War II and universal demands for human (and chicken) rights. 

Needless to say, the sequel, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, was highly anticipated by audiences and critics. Nearly 20 years after the original, the follow-up had big shoes to fill. What lessons would the new Chicken Run teach us? Perhaps something about the rise of fascism? Environmentalism? Maybe it would lead us to the answers we’ve all been searching for in these tumultuous times? Unfortunately, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget takes more of a formulaic follow-up approach than broaching anything remotely groundbreaking. 

In this rendition, Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) and Rocky (Zachary Levi, replacing Mel Gibson) return, now living in an idyllic, poultry utopia. Though they are happy in their new homes, they are closed off from the rest of society. Their daughter, Molly (Bella Ramsey), takes after her mother and dreams of life bigger than their confined existence on the island. Soon, Molly escapes to the mainland and finds herself trapped in a chicken factory called Fun-Land Farm. Now, it’s up to the other chickens to break into the factory, a subversion from the previous film’s breakout. 

Dawn of the Nugget isn’t completely without charm. The animation is beautiful and bright, stepping away from the original film’s muted color palate to favor a more vibrant chicken paradise. Fun-Land Farm is garishly bright, showcasing the false promises of the deceptively named poultry plant. Even the heist-like stunts feel higher stakes and more elaborate. There are more hijinks, slipping, falling, and scrambling than ever. 

Though the scale feels dialled up to 11, the film is missing its original creativity and simplistic but resilient spirit that made it an instant classic. Dawn of the Nugget is much more concerned with simple tropes like breaking away from tradition and marching to the beat of your own drum than anything revolutionary. Its simple premise and resistance to taking risks – both thematically and comedically – make the 101-minute run feel like a bit of a slog. 

It’s a lot to ask of a film – to be both a succinct manifesto about the state of modern politics and revolutionary movements and a hokey comedy about chickens falling on their heads – but it has been done before. Perhaps the reason Dawn of the Nugget felt so flat is the enormous shadow its predecessor casts upon the film. And, in the 20 years in between the first and second editions of Ginger and Rocky’s story, we’ve had plenty of time to fill in the gaps on our own. Dawn of the Nugget is a fine movie to turn on for the kids on a Saturday afternoon, but turn on Chicken Run (2000) and you might just have a revolution on your hands. 

Score: 12/24

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A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019)
Directors: Richard Phelan, Will Becher
Screenwriters: Mark Burton, Jon Brown
Starring: Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Amalia Vitale, Chris Morrell

Chicken Run was released twenty one years ago this year. It marked Aardman Animation’s first foray into the world of feature filmmaking and was an instant classic, proving that the British producers could hang with even the biggest and best animation studios such as Pixar, Disney and Dreamworks. Despite Aardman proving their abilities to create classics such as Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the animation group have struggled over the past decade to match the calibre of such early films, consistently making good films but never quite reaching the heights that they once reached.

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon marks the second feature film of the beloved Aardman character Shaun the Sheep. Following on from the relatively successful first film Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015), and being the recipient of an Oscar nomination for Animated Feature in 2021, it may seem from the outside like Farmageddon is the film to kick-start the Aardman renaissance. The truth is, however, less optimistic. 

Farmageddon follows the titular Shaun the Sheep as he attempts to return Lu-La, an alien who has crash-landed near Mossy Bottom Farm, back to her ship. All the while The Ministry for Alien Detection attempts to capture Shaun’s new alien friend.

The movie is jam-packed with references to past Aardman projects as well as to the science fiction genre, creating a rather fun world that by its very nature appeals to children but also works hard to appeal to older fans of the studio, maintaining engagement through references and homages to the likes of ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Red Dwarf’ and Back to the Future.

That being said, Farmageddon is very much aimed at children. Whereas some of the animation house’s best films have simply been suitable for children, mostly being lauded for appealing to audiences of all ages, Farmageddon feels as though it is directly aimed at kids, for better and for worse. It’s a film very low on dialogue, making it accessible to audiences across nations, age limitations and language barriers, but this choice does take away from a lot of Aardman’s appeal as a witty and sarcastic animation studio, reducing the potential of the film. More than clever, it seems lazy… at least relative to their years long projects in the early days.

Whereas Aardman’s favourite canine, Gromit, has more character than most of the company’s other characters despite his lack of speech, Shaun the Sheep does not follow suit. Shaun is mischievous and caring, but finding much personality or depth beyond this is difficult. The same issue arises with Lu-La, and particularly the film’s ensemble of minor characters.

This one dimensional treatment of the characters translates into the story itself. Despite heavy similarities between the story of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra Terrestrial and A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, Farmageddon spreads the story as thinly as possible, keeping in all of the fun and taking out much of its emotional impact. Whereas Chicken Run expanded upon the films it was parodying by creating something original out of homage, Farmageddon is much more difficult to enjoy on its own. 

Many of the jokes completely fail to land in Farmageddon, and in many ways it is reductive (especially for an animation house as reputable as Aardman), but it does feature some of the very best animation the studio have put together so far and there is fun to be had.

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon doesn’t feel like an Oscar-worthy film, and perhaps it is not the one to kick-start an Aardman renaissance, but the short runtime goes by as quickly as you’d expect and it is in places irresistibly fun, so while it is a film that is too hollow to praise it is certainly too difficult to hate.

13/24

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In this edition of Ranked, we’re looking across Dreamworks Animation’s twenty-plus years of animated feature films to rank each and every one of the studio’s thirty eight releases from worst to best in terms of entertainment value, artistic endeavour, animation standard, critical reception and audience perception, for this: Every Dreamworks Animation Movie Ranked.

No doubt there will be some contention regarding the order, so let us know your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to follow The Film Magazine on Twitter.

38. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)

Budget: $60million
Worldwide Box Office: $80.8million
Starring: Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michelle Pfeiffer, Joseph Fiennes

It seems that nobody can remember this one. Even Brad Pitt, the movie’s star, has forgotten about it, stating in the build-up to the release of Megamind that he wanted to be a part of the 2010 movie so that his children could enjoy him playing a part in an animated film.

37. Shark Tale (2004)

Budget: $75million
Worldwide Box Office: $367.3million
Starring: Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger, Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese, Ziggy Marley

Hugely successful, but disastrously awful. Shark Tale’s animation was almost completely lifeless, and was especially embarrassing in comparison to Pixar’s immaculately presented Finding Nemo from the previous year. Some people do have fond memories of this film, but we’ll put that down to nostalgia and Christina Aguilera’s rendition of “Car Wash”.

36. Shrek the Third (2007)

Budget: $160million
Worldwide Box Office: $799million
Starring: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Rupert Everett, Eric Idle, Justin Timberlake

Shrek was outstanding and Shrek 2 was a worthy follow up, but Shrek the Third lacked all the magic of its predecessors and left a disgusting taste in many a Shrek fan’s mouth: the taste of disappointment. Whose idea was it to make a children’s animated film about a middle-aged married couple with children anyway?

35. Shrek Forever After (2010)

Budget: $165million
Worldwide Box Office: $752.6million
Starring: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Jon Hamm, Walt Dohrn, Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson, Lake Bell

After the franchise’s third movie, we expected this nonsense. That’s it… the only reason Shrek Forever After is above Shrek the Third on this list is because it didn’t have to follow a gem like Shrek 2 and thus didn’t leave us all disappointed in the franchise’s sudden drop in quality. It owes its standing above other films to one thing: a familiarity with once engaging characters.

34. Bee Movie (2007)

Budget: $150million
Worldwide Box Office: $287.6million
Starring: Jerry Seinfeld, Renée Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, Chris Rock, Kathy Bates, Barry Levinson, Larry King, Ray Liotta, Sting, Oprah Winfrey, Rip Torn

‘Bee Movie’ is more often remembered as a meme and a source of mockery than as a movie. That’s all you really need to know.

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33. The Boss Baby (2017)

Budget: $125million
Worldwide Box Office: $456.7million
Starring: Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow, Tobey Maguire

Based on a picture book with not enough content to transform into a meaningful silver screen story, The Boss Baby feels like an overly long joke that doesn’t quite pack the punch you thought it would, yet still leaves you quietly chuckling away to yourself. This makes it one of the “not so bad it’s unwatchable” movies in this list.

32. Home (2015)

Home Review

Budget: $135million
Worldwide Box Office: $386million
Starring: Jim Parsons, Rihanna, Steve Martin, Jennifer Lopez

It’s arguable that this movie’s lack of popularity can be owed to the state that Dreamworks was in at the time of its release, because with Rihanna at the centre of the picture and the ever popular Jim Parsons playing her alien friend, it seemed to have the perfect formula for success. As it turns out, the movie was pretty good too, but “pretty good” doesn’t push a movie up this list.

In the wake of the announcement of another silver screen release – Chicken Run 2 (set for Netflix in 2022/23) – we’ve taken a look at the works of Aardman Animation and their spectacular feature films. Although each of these have been rated highly and have together made around $1 billion at the worldwide box office, we’ve ranked them in order of absolute brilliance, for this: Aardman Animation Movies Ranked.

Have an opinion? Let us know in the comments at the end of this article.

8. Early Man (2018)

2018 saw Aardman’s release of Early Man, another highly anticipated stop-motion production.

The film follows a tribe of primitive Stone Age valley dwellers who have to defend their land from bronze-using invaders in a football match. The creative and pertinent story was entertaining for sure, using its sweet humour and unique visuals to kept young audiences coming back for a second and third viewing. Sadly it bombed at the box office.

7. Flushed Away (2006)

The third and final collaboration between Aardman and Dreamworks, Flushed Away was the company’s first computer-animated film as opposed to their usual stop-motion style. Again, bringing a whole host of voice actors such as Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet, this production received a BAFTA nomination, and even a video game was released. Enjoyed by children and adults worldwide, Flushed Away also boasts a fantastic soundtrack.

Recommended for you: Every Dreamworks Animation Movie Ranked