Aardman Animations has been in artistic decline for years, and I guess I was hoping that the reported clay shortage would force it to return to ... well, shorts, good quality shorts. And maybe trousers. Instead we get this feature-length sequel to Chicken Run with nary a fingerprint in sight; is this entirely just soulless CGI, based on a true claymation? The generic story could definitely have been extracted from a large language model, one that does not have much of a repertoire of visual gags. Perhaps the loss of quirk is the malign influence of being produced by Netflix. All the accents in Britain can't make up the deficit.
Mel Gibson did not get rehabilitated. His leading-rooster character Rocky is more vacuous this time around. Timothy Spall did not return to voice the rat either. Thandiwe Newton replaced Julia Sawalha for the lead-chook Ginger. Director Sam Fell has form for dreck (Flushed Away). The process of going from chook to nugget is suggested but when it comes to it Melisha Tweedy (her name a highlight for me, Miranda Richardson in both) emerges intact.
Peter Bradshaw: nods to The Truman Show, Toy Story 3... and surely Barbie? Alissa Wilkinson at the New York Times. Very spoofy.