Aardman's Chicken Run (Franchise)

[Dacey]

It a tie-in book that was released at the time, it’s “confirmed” she survived the explosion. There’s like a newspaper interview with her about what happened and Mr. Tweedy keeps babbling excitedly about the chickens causing it, much to her annoyance.

Really I never assumed she was dead.

But yeah, this does look solid enough apart from Ginger’s voice. It just sounds so off.

[Farerb]

She survived the explosion but then her husband pushed a heavy door on top of her.

[Ben]

Underwhelmed. Aardman have fallen into this kind of trap of having to have *gadgets* everywhere in everything. Obviously Wallace & Gromit kicked this off, but they were literally handmade devices, whereas in the years since almost every animated film has to have its version of the invisible red lasers from Entrapment, and has to be some Mission: Impossible knock-off, or at least pastiche, with de rigueur Media Ventures-styled Powell/Gregson-Williams techno-orchestral score.

The 40s or 50s charm of the first film has evaporated for this "more of the same as everything else" feeling where I don’t think I noticed anything new or surprising in the whole trailer. Naturally it’s going to have some good bits, and Aardman's humor usually hits a spot, but this is feeling more and more like a twenty years too late "cash grab", and even if there’s no cash to actually grab, it’s fairly evident that they are merely returning to their most popular title just to get a bit of brand recognition and popularity back.

Ginger: not that it doesn’t *fit*, but the voice sounds too clean and assertive. Maybe that’s who she is twenty years later (is this supposed to be set in the spying 60s?), but then why not just stick with the original? Tweedy: yeah, I think you can take it that she survived, or go dark and accept that Aardman killed her off. Either way, she’s back in a not-so surprising surprise. Why not come up with a new villain? Tweedy suddenly having such a high-tech facility doesn’t make much sense, and if this is supposed to have moved from the 40s/50s into the 60s, just how long do plasticine chickens live anyway…?

[Dacey]

Tweedy living will be worth it if she does an extended James Bond villain speech, but to a chicken.

The thing is that Julia can still do the voice:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/tvsho ... n-Run.html

However I'm not sure if this was about "ageism" so much as it was about someone in PR being like "oh no, the cast for the first Chicken Run wasn't 'diverse' enough, so we'd better 'fix' that."

[Ben]

Yes, because chickens are diverse, obviously. I think you’ve nailed that exact reason. Again, why not have a new Rocky-style character come in to fulfil that role? It’s weird how Mel dominated the first one but we hardly hear a peep out of him so far in the trailer. If Gibson wasn’t returning, why change him, and why not switch characters?

I must say that it looked as well crafted as the first, which is good to see, as I was worried it might have been a poultry offering in that regard.

I’m here all week.

[EricJ]

I’m here all week.

Oh, not going on 'oliday?

[Daniel]

I always thought the original was set in the 1960s. The song that Rocky listens to on the radio while on the tricycle is "The Wanderer" from 1961.

[Ben]

True…but the "camp" is certainly set up like a WWII POW camp, as depicted in many 1950s movies. Potentially anachronistic song aside, there’s a definite 50s thing going on there.

[GeffreyDrogon]

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-fil ... 34925.html

[Ben]

Oh. Forgotten Zachary Levi was the one replacing mad Mel in this.

I’m not really one to miss a film because of who is in it — like those that won’t watch a Tom Cruise or Will Smith because they disagree with Scientology (more fool them: the latest Mission is *insanely* good!) — but I’ve pretty much tuned myself out for anything Levi is involved in, since the guy sadly is a d*ck, along the same lines, again sadly, as Woody Harrelson.

[Farerb]

Does that mean you hate Tangled now?

[Ben]

No, of course not, and I won’t be one of those people who won’t see a film because of who's in it, but it slides down my "day one", or equivalent, list. A "franchise" is bigger than any one star, but I probably wouldn’t seek out a film he was headlining specifically because he was in it. I was already not too bothered about Shazam 2, as I wasn’t that blown away by the first one, but I'd probably not have even bothered about the first one had I known then what I think about him now. If any of that makes sense!

[GeffreyDrogon]

Well, Levi was begging people to go see Shazam: Fury of the Gods when it was released, because of how poorly that film was doing at the box office.

[Ben]

Well, then, maybe I'm not the only one…

[ShyViolet]

Official trailer:

https://youtu.be/qYnRj3WmCfM?si=aonJ1o10nbkPfyMm