“Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” a new stop motion animated film from Aardman Animations and playing in theatres this week before moving to Netflix next week, comes with great eggs-pectations. The original film, 2000s “Chicken Run,” is a beloved classic of British humour, heartwarming and heavy on the charm.
But can a sequel, twenty-three years in the making, be all it’s cracked up to be or will it lay an egg?
The new film picks up years after revolutionary chicken Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) and American circus rooster Rocky (Zachary Levi) escape the prisoner-of-war style Tweedy’s Industrial Farm. The happy couple now celebrate their freedom, living on an island bird sanctuary, far from the dangers of humanity, with friends Babs (Jane Horrocks), elderly rooster Fowler (David Bradley), Bunty (Imelda Staunton) their rat BFFs Nick and Fetcher (Romesh Ranganathan and Daniel Mays) and daughter Molly (Bella Ramsey).
“Life doesn’t get better than this,” Ginger says. “We’ve put the past behind us. We have Molly to think about now.”
It’s a wonderful life, but Molly, who has her mother’s rebellious spirit, feels fenced in. “You can’t make me stay here,” she tells Ginger.
Molly flies the coop, eager to check out Fun-Land Farms, a new operation on the mainland. With her feather-brained friend Frizzle (Josie Sedgwick-Davies) they soon discover the new farm is a processing plant for, you guessed it, chicken nuggets.
“Behold the dawn of the nugget,” says evil plant owner Mrs. Tweedy (Miranda Richardson).
It’s up to Ginger, Rocky and Company to come to the rescue. “Last time we broke out of a chicken farm,” says Ginger. “This time we’re breaking in.”
Like so many sequels, the story has bloated from the simplicity story of the 2000 film. But despite the food-for-thought subtext involving fast food and heavier plotting, “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” is still nimble and action packed.
The original “Chicken Run” was a riff on World War II great escape style films. “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” pays homage to the first movie, but leans into the James Bond and “Mission Impossible” franchises as inspirations for the wild poultry action.
Most of all, there is something welcoming about the Aardman stop motion animation. The house style is bold and beautiful, vivid and uncluttered, but it is the eccentric characters that really appeal. With their large eyes and exaggerated mouths and eyebrows, the Plasticine characters brim with personality and unmistakably come from the same creators that gave us the cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his mute and long-suffering canine side-kick Gromit. Shot one frame-at-a-time, the animation feels handcrafted and organic, and has a warmth most CGI kids flicks don’t have.
“Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” is pretty cluckin’ good. It’s an entertaining, family-friendly mix of charm and craft.
Last night Richard hosted a screening of the new “Downton Abbey” movie at the Varsity Theatre in Toronto with Lesley Nicol who played Mrs. Patmore, Phyllis Logan who was Mrs. Hughes and Kevin Doyle who played Mr. Mosley. When Richard asked if anyone took any mementos home from the set after the film was done Doyle joked, “I took Maggie Smith home!”
Near the end of “Downton Abbey,” the big screen finale to the widely popular slice of British upper-class life, Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern) coos, “I do love our adventures.” I imagine the vast majority of the audience will nod in silent agreement, basking in the reflected glow of highly polished silverware in this very fan friendly film.
The story picks up shortly after the end of the television series. Inside the mammoth country house that gave the show its name Earl Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) sips tea and trades barbs with his acid tongued mother the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith), his wife Cora at his side. Daughters Edith (Laura Carmichael) and Mary (Michelle Dockery) are married to the 7th Marquess of Hexham (Harry Hadden-Paton) and Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode) respectively. Son-in-Law Tom Branson (Allen Leech), former chauffeur, Irish socialist and current estate manager for the property, raises his daughter with the help of… well, the help, who live downstairs.
Everyone, upstairs and down, are whipped into a tizzy when it’s announced that Queen Mary (Geraldine James) and King George V (Simon Jones) will be stopping by for a visit.
The news sends the house staff into a frenzy of silverware polishing and menu planning. Retired butler Carson (Jim Carter) is called back into service, while his head housekeeper wife Elsie (Phyllis Logan) gets the staff, including snooty butler Thomas Barrow (Rob James-Collier), cook Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) and assistant cook Daisy (Sophie McShera), ready for the Royal visit.
Trouble is, Lady Maud Bagshaw (Imelda Staunton), one of the Queen’s ladies in waiting is in the Dowager Countess’s bad books. Seems Lord Grantham is her closest relative but she intends to leave her substantial estate to someone else. Prepare for some grade-a Dowager zingers.
Add to that a suspicious character in the village (Stephen Campbell Moore), the pompous royal staff, questions about Tom’s allegiance, stolen knick-knacks, a mild mutiny in defense of Downton’s honour, unlikely love stories and one royal meltdown and you have a story that feels like a high-falutin’ soap opera made by Merchant Ivory on an Earl Grey binge.
“Downton Abbey” is pure fan service. Most of the characters return, although Lily James fans will be disappointed, the house is as grand as ever and James is just as petulant as ever, if perhaps a little less villainous this time around. Revelations are made, storylines from the TV show are closed and, as always, life goes on at Downton. It all feels very familiar but like a comforting cup of tea, very welcome.
There are eight million stories in the naked city, and the story of Paddington the cuddly, orphaned Peruvian bear is one of them.
Based on the much-loved children’s books by Michael Bond, “Paddington” begins in “darkest Peru” as jaunty English explorer Montgomery Clyde (Tim Downie) discovers Lucy and Pastuzo (voices of Imelda Staunton and Michael Gambon), a family of super intelligent, anglophile bears. Before heading back to old Blighty Clyde teaches them the Queen’s English, introduces them to marmalade, gifts them a floppy bright red hat and an invitation to stop by should they ever find themselves in London.
Cut to decades later. In the grand tradition of kid’s stories, an orphaned child (voice of Ben Whishaw)—in this case the marmalade-obsessed grandson of Lucy and Pastuzo—is forced to take a great journey to safety. The cub, armed only with a “worrying marmalade problem” and the distinctive red hat, lands at Paddington Station in London. Instead of the warm welcome he expected, he’s met with indifference.
“Keep your eyes down, there’s some sort of bear over there.”
After a long wait, Mr. and Mrs. Brown (“Downton Abbey’s” Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins) and kids Judy and Jonathan (Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin) take pity on the polite little bear and bring him home, but only for one night. Of course, one night turns into a longer stay as the Browns learn to love the little bear, even though chaos follows his every step. Adding drama to the story is an ursophobic neighbor (“Doctor Who’s” Peter Capaldi) and a crazed taxidermist (Nicole Kidman).
Warm, funny and as eccentric as a movie about a talking bear should be, “Paddington” is great family entertainment. Director Paul King keeps up the pace—this is not a teddy bore!—but never allows the film to become frenetic. The action scenes are fun, yet gentle, amusing and inventive. Paddington’s unintentional takedown of a pickpocket is a wonderful, silly gag that captures and updates the spirit of the old “Paddington” books with an up-to-date look and feel for a new generation.
Laugh out loud funny—for kids and parents—“Paddington” also offers up a message of tolerance. “In London everyone is different,” says Paddington, “so everyone can fit in.” It’s a big idea, washed down with a giant melting-pot of marmalade, but also a timely one.
Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death has more in common with its predecessor, the 2012 chiller Woman in Black, than just a title and source material.
The first film starred Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter himself, in the lead role. The spooky new movie about the strange goings-on at a haunted house during World War II co-stars Potter alum Helen McCrory and Adrian Rawlins.
McCrory, who plays Angel of Death’s uptight schoolmarm, was pregnant when Potter producers offered her the role of pure-blood witch Bellatrix Lestrange in Order of the Phoenix. She passed and the part went to Helena Bonham Carter but two years later she jumped at the chance to play Narcissa, Bellatrix’s sister and the mother of Draco Malfoy, in The Half-Blood Prince.
Co-star Rawlins is the shadowy Dr. Rhodes in Angel of Death, but is best known as the father of Harry in seven Potter movies. Years before playing James Potter the actor starred in the original Woman in Black TV adaptation as Arthur, the role Radcliffe played in the recent remake.
Over the ten years they were in production it seems like the Potter films employed almost all of the British Actors’ Equity Association. Everyone from Ralph Fiennes, Richard Harris and Gary Oldman to Maggie Smith, Imelda Staunton and Emma Thompson appeared in the series. When Bill Nighy was cast in The Deathly Hallows he said. “I am no longer the only English actor not to be in Harry Potter and I am very pleased.”
Less well known than the British superstars that peppered the Potter cast are some of the supporting players, many of which have gone on to breakout success without Harry.
Tom Felton will likely always be associated with cowardly bully Draco Malfoy, so it’s not surprising he played the spineless bad guy utters the famous “damn dirty ape” line,” in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Before he starred opposite Rachel McAdams in the time travel romance About Time Domhnall Gleeson was Curse-Breaker Bill Weasley in The Deathly Hallows. The son of actor Brendan Gleeson is on his way to household name status with a role as an Imperial officer who defects to the Republic in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
The biggest breakout Potter alum has to be Robert Pattinson. He’s best known as sparkling vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight franchise but he first appeared as Cedric Diggory in The Goblet of Fire. “The day before [the movie came out] I was just sitting in Leicester Square,” he said, “happily being ignored by everyone. Then suddenly strangers are screaming your name. Amazing.”
“Pride,” a new British film that mixes gay rights, a miner’s strike and the Bronski Beat, isn’t so much a movie as it is an anthem, à la Tom Robinson’s foot stomping tune “Glad to Be Gay.”
It’s the true story of an unlikely alliance, a bond between a group of Camden Town lesbian and gay activists and the miners of a village in Wales. The catalyst for the story is Mark (Ben Schnetzer), a young gay man who feels the government is bullying The National Union of Mineworkers just as homophobic Londoners had pushed him around. As the union is at the cusp of a strike that would become a year-long battle against widespread pit closures, he rallies his friends to raise money. Dubbed the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, they work the streets, collecting hundreds of pounds. Trouble is the miners don’t want the money. At least at first.
Afraid to be associated with a gay group The National Union of Mineworkers won’t even return Mark’s phone calls. When he directly contacts Dai (Paddy Considine), a union rep in a Welsh village, he finally finds someone who understands the meaning of solidarity.
“Pride” tells an interesting and important story, and does so with terrific performances. Considine brings dignity and intellect to Dai, Dominic West is colorful and compassionate as LGSM member Jonathan and Bill Nighy, as Cliff, the seemingly uptight Welsh town father, displays the effortless charm and grace that makes him the go-to for eccentric English characters.
When it works, it works terrifically well. A near silent scene between Nighy and Imelda Staunton, lifelong friends and workers for the union cause, is wonderfully under-played. It’s touching, joyful and perfect.
The rest of “Pride” is pitched somewhere in tone between the industrial comedies of “Kinky Boots” and “The Full Monty.” Relentlessly upbeat, it favors broad comedy and is occasionally earnest but it doesn’t skimp on the social history. Despite its sense of fun it delves into the lives of each of these groups. The story might be painted in broad strokes, but it isn’t afraid to tackle topics like homophobia, AIDS and intolerance.
