Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)

Just when you thought the dystopian nightmare masquerading as a children's movie couldn't get any more eerie, it has developed a sequel.

The good: Ginger and Rocky have settled into a lovely life post-farm and have had a daughter! How adorable! They are navigating new familydom! (And I'm a little intrigued about how their new community intends to thrive with a Single Rooster of like... youthful age on the island. I don't think Fowler is having kids. I have perhaps put too much thought into this.)

The bad: island life is too blissful and now their new little chick wants to go out and explore the world. Uh oh. Naturally, everything in this has consequences and she winds up drawn into a new type of processing factory masquerading as the "most fun" farm ever that treats its chickens "so well" (aka: forces them to be happy, not actually facilitating that joy, and lying about the fact that they will die).

I don't have much to say other than I really loved this movie, it managed to capture the original's feel of a nightmarish conceptual reality for these chickens and somehow managed to elevate it beyond the original movie with the level of existentialism. The concept of being brainwashed into being placid towards your own demise is a great trope and they executed it really wonderfully. I forgot just how much I loved these characters after all these years and I'm so happy the sequel was at a similar level to the original!

Truly though, what the hell do you mean this is rated PG. The horror that this franchise is imbued with is so unfettered and raw in its execution, I'd label it as some of the best speculative fiction I've ever consumed. I cannot explain the dread that these two movies cause, it is so well done and amazingly produced considering that PG rating. Funny and charming and yet not at all holding back in making some of the most unsettling scenes I've ever experienced. The blank stares haunt me.

Side, side, side, not-necessary note: I really wish we'd see Babs meet a rooster who is just so straight laced and serious and rigid yet has a soft spot just for her and her eccentricisms. I've always loved the pure energy of Babs - she might not know what the fuck is going on, but by god does she try. The concept of her getting a stern rooster to wear a sweater she knitted lives rent free in my head. I'd love to see a little animated short around that, but I'm just grateful we got a second movie at all considering Chicken Run crash-landed into our lives in 2000 - a sequel over two decades later was a welcome surprise.

tl;dr: I watched this with my sister and it made me feel like a little kid again in the most wonderful way and it was just as horrifying as I wanted it to be.