Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details of classification and consumer advice lines for Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
• a review of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 19 December 2023.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie’s message

A synopsis of the story

Rocky (voice of Zachary Levi) and Ginger (voice of Thandiwe Newton), along with their community of freed chickens from Mrs Tweedy’s chicken farm, including Mac (voice of Lynn Ferguson), Babs (voice of Jane Horrocks), Fowler (voice of David Bradley) and Bunty (voice of Imelda Staunton), live the peaceful life they had always dreamed of having. Tucked away on an isolated island with everything they need, Ginger and Rocky welcome their little chick Molly (voice of Bella Ramsey) into the world and are so grateful that they can raise her in a safe and secure location. Things are going well until developers cut down an adjacent forest to make way for a road that leads to ‘Fun-land Farms’, a chicken processing plant masquerading as a fun park. Ginger and Rocky take every precaution to keep young Molly from learning of the plant’s existence and of the world beyond their small island. However, Molly’s adventurous spirit will not be silent and, forbidden to leave but not understanding the reasons behind it, one night she takes off, determined to see the world for herself and to discover why her parents are keeping this fun-looking place from her. On the road to find the farm, Molly meets Frizzle (voice of Josie Sedgwick-Davies), an enthusiastic chicken who wants a Fun-land bucket for herself and to experience the great adventure called ‘life’. At first glance, Fun-land Farms is everything they could ever have hoped for: full of happy chickens, fun rides and all the food they could possibly eat. But when Frizzle is grabbed by a human and a collar is placed around her neck, Molly soon discovers that the neck tags they wear are mind-control devices that allow the chickens to happily walk to their own deaths. To make matters worse, Fun-land Farms is run by Mrs Tweedy (voice of Miranda Richardson), who will stop at nothing to turn the chickens into tasty morsels and who has long since harboured an intense hatred for Ginger, whom she blames for destroying her old farm. When Ginger and Rocky team up with their old pals to help save Molly, they wind up getting much more than they bargained for.

Cruelty to animals; Running away from home; Greed; Revenge; Post-traumatic fear.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

• Multiple flashback scenes are shown throughout the film of Mrs. Tweedy about to kill a chicken (often Ginger), as she brandishes knives and axes above her head, ready to strike.
• Mrs. Tweedy has flashbacks of Ginger cutting the rope that sends her crashing back down to her farm.
• An egg, ready to hatch, falls off a shelf and sounds like it has “splat” onto the rock pile below. Instead, it fell into a haystack.
• Molly’s pram rolls out of control and crashes into a pile of bushes. Molly is unharmed.
• Ginger has a nightmare in which she sees a shadowy figure of Mrs Tweedy holding an axe while proclaiming that her daughter “will be delicious”.
• One character is knocked back into a bunch of others as they are flung off the back of a truck.
• A bug is electrocuted on a fence.
• Chickens are grabbed around the necks, tags are put on them and they are then forced down a chute, while clearly terrified.
• Rocky attempts to fly into the chicken farm but gets caught on the barbed wire at the top of the fence and then electrocuted as he falls and touches it. Robots shoot guns at him and laser beams blast him as he tries to scale another fence. He then falls off onto a concrete slab and is sucked inside a vent.
• A man has a cake smashed in his face.
• A character smashes into a tree.
• Rocky is hit on the head by two rats and an umbrella.
• Rocky and two rats fall into the flames of a broiler but then rise with the umbrella and get stuck in a fan that spins them around the wrong way, into a vent.
• Molly is thrown into a wall.
• A man in a chicken costume grabs Frizzle and locks a collar around her neck.
• A group of chickens attack a guard with knitting needles and duct tape. He is later shown knitted into a straitjacket.
• There are slicing sounds as chickens are taken to their deaths.
• There are close-ups of human mouths as they are shown eating chicken nuggets.
• Two rats land on a guard’s head and knock him down a vent.
• When Mrs. Tweedy learns the chickens are hiding in a corn silo, she turns on the grinder, intending to kill them all.
• The chickens are blasted out of the top of a corm silo.
• A character falls down the stairs while in a roller chair and a large eggshell crashes onto his head.
• Mrs. Tweedy viciously knocks Rocky into the air and off the landing where he gets tangled in a bunch of wires.
• An insane-looking Mrs. Tweedy chases Ginger with an axe.
• Mrs. Tweedy and her new husband send masses of chickens walking towards their death. The chickens are zombie-like as they move en masse down conveyor belts to large choppers.
• Mrs. Tweedy grabs Molly and pins her down, holding an axe above her head while daring Ginger to press a button and threatening to kill Molly.
• Molly bites Mrs. Tweedy.
• Rocky cuts off Mrs. Tweedy’s hair with an axe.
• An airborne axe hits Mrs. Tweedy in the head and she falls into the grinder, along with the axe, and breaks the machine.
• The chickens hit two men with a truck as they attempt to escape.
• Mrs. Tweedy is knocked off a truck by an old rooster, who then slams into a tree.
• Laser ducks target Mrs. Tweedy and there are lots of explosions as the farm collapses around them.
• Chickens, from another farm, are reported as being kept in cages with up to 30 chickens at a time. These crates of crammed-in chickens are shown briefly.
• Ginger and the crew look ready to break these caged chickens out, using a variety of weaponry.

Material that may scare or disturb children

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

• Molly ventures into the woods as she runs away from her home. There are creepy, growling sounds and an evil-looking tree with a sinister, grimacing face, accompanied by suspenseful music.
• Mrs. Tweedy goes through the chicken chopper and comes out lumpy-looking and coated in crumbs. Her face is a mask of vengeful fury and hatred. She looks like a monster as she flies to the roof of the truck the chickens are escaping in and attacks the top of the truck with her axe, swinging wildly at the chickens inside. She looks creepy and extremely evil. Her terrible actions and awful appearance may distress some young children.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

• Ginger is strapped to a table and placed in a collar while Mrs. Tweedy cranks up the mind-control powers to maximum. Molly watches in horror as her mother tries to resist and then passes out after the machine is set to the highest level. When Molly is able to free her mother, she is upset to learn that her mother doesn’t recognise her and that she seems to be acting drunk and incapacitated.
• The dark flashbacks of Mrs. Tweedy attempting to kill Ginger and other chickens with axes or knives may also be distressing to some young children.
• Mrs. Tweedy goes after Ginger again, intent on killing her with the axe, as Ginger tries to help Rocky and the others. When Mrs Tweedy realises that Ginger is out of her reach, she grabs Molly instead. Ginger must watch as Molly is held down with her neck stretched out and an axe poised above it. Molly urges her mother to save the other chickens, even if it means that she loses her own life in the process. Both Molly and Ginger make it out alive but the scene may be upsetting to some viewers.

• Nothing further noted.

Product placement

• None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• A character says, “There go the goujons”, as another character grabs at his backside and holds on to his tail feathers.
• Characters are told, “Find a crack to hold onto”, as they climb up a silo wall. One rat grabs the buttocks of another and the second rat cries out, ‘Not that crack!”
• Mrs. Tweedy and another character appear to flirt mildly with each other, even though her new husband is present.

Nudity and sexual activity

• None noted.

Use of substances

• None noted.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• Idiot.

In a nutshell

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a stop-motion, CGI animated sequel to the British blockbuster Chicken Run. Featuring a familiar cast of characters and a similar plot line, viewers are, once again, treated to a chicken’s perspective on things. Due to the violence and themes, this is not a film for young kids but one that is likely to be enjoyed by families with older children as well as adult audiences and fans of stop-motion entertainment.

The main messages from this movie are to listen to your parents; trust your gut; and never leave anyone behind.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• Ingenuity
• Courage
• Friendship
• Teamwork
• Empathy.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

• Seeking revenge.
• Running away from home because you think that you know better than your parents.
• Excessive consumption of meat.
• The reality of chicken farms and animal processing.
• Human greed.
• Being afraid to live because of what has happened in the past.