With every new Aardman production, their stop motion animation technique becomes more and more seamless, looking practically indistinguishable from the work being put out by other animation studios that use CG. However, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget also threatens to flatten into the same kind of entertainment churned out by other studios at a faster rate. There isn’t as much personality to either the story or the art direction—which gave the first Chicken Run film such a sense of urgency—and any ideas about how one’s radical beliefs are tested with age never really get off the ground. And yet, what Aardman is able to do with actual tactile models will never not be impressive, these rebellious chickens standing as a tribute to handcrafted storytelling that will never be replaced.
"Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is baggier than the original, not as funny, and it drags in parts and is on the whole less memorable. But dammit, it’s still fun, and that’s ultimately what matters."
— Bilge Ebiri
"A playful strength of “Dawn of the Nugget” comes through its homages and while there is sport to be had in ringing the references, the plot is extremely simple."
— Sophie Monks Kaufman
A band of fearless chickens flock together to save poultry-kind from an unsettling new threat: a nearby farm that's cooking up something suspicious.
Ginger and Rocky leave their secluded bird sanctuary to rescue their daughter Molly, after her curiosity leads her to a dangerous industrial chicken farm.
The few moments when Dawn of the Nugget allows itself to be a little eerier are when the film is at its best. Horror isn't something that Aardman is known for or very interested in (as opposed to their fellow stop motion studio Laika), but at times they still get to take advantage of how eerie an unblinking silicon model can look. And every suggestion of violence—a human character holding up an axe, for example—feels all the more real, given our subconscious knowledge that the chickens we see on screen are made of actual parts that can be held, manipulated, and broken.
If we could redirect some of the money being spent on a certain multi-billion dollar corporation's halfhearted projects, to fund at least one more Aardman project every couple years, we'd all be better off for it.
