Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget — Aardman hatches another winner

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and humorous action

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

Children.

 

The moment you look away, they do something stupid.

 

Although Funland Farms appears to be a larkish paradise, Frizzle and Molly soon wonder
why all the other chickens seem ... well ... not in control of their own selves.

Such behavior obviously isn’t limited to human beings, given what kicks off the action in Aardman Animation’s marvelous new Claymation entry: another hilarious, stop-motion masterpiece from the folks who brought us Wallace & Gromit.

(This seems to be the season for animated poultry, given that this film follows hot on the wings of Illumination’s Migration.)

 

This sequel is something of a surprise, given that 2000’s Chicken Run was almost a quarter-century ago. But scarcely any time has passed in the lives of intrepid avians Ginger (voiced by Thandiwe Newton) and Rocky (Zachary Levi), since they orchestrated a mass escape from the farm run by evil Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy. The clutch has settled in an idyllic island sanctuary in the middle of an isolated lake, where life has been stress-free.

 

Their only visitors are skillful scavenger rats Nick (Romesh Ranganathan) and Fletcher (Daniel Mays), who pop up occasionally with supplies.

 

Ginger and Rocky soon are blessed with a hatchling, Molly, who grows into an adventurous — and restless — adolescent (now voiced by Bella Ramsey).

 

A surge of suspicious-looking trucks on the mainland fuel concern that a new chicken farm is being constructed, which prompts Ginger and the others to better conceal their community. Alas, that isn’t enough to deter the insatiably curious Molly, who crosses the water and then — having never before seen one — stops in the middle of a paved road.

 

(Insert the obvious joke.)

 

She’s rescued from a nasty death by Frizzle (Josie Sedgwick-Davis), a similarly adventurous young chicken beguiled by the slogan on all the passing trucks: “Funland Farms: Where Chickens Find Their Happy Endings.” All the trucks are filled with happily clucking chickens, apparently oblivious to the slogan’s implications; Molly and Frizzle hop aboard for what they believe will be a great adventure.

 

If that slogan seems a bit dire for a family-friendly comedy, the film’s title is significantly worse ... and the scripters — Karey Kirkpatrick, John O’Farrell and Rachel Tunnard, assisted by seven (!) more credited writers — also don’t shy away from depicting that consequence. (Remember, the Brits gave us Roald Dahl. They have faith in a youngster’s appetite for gruesome touches.)

The Mauritanian: A disservice to history

The Mauritanian (2021) • View trailer

2.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity, and grim scenes of torture

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.5.21

Many stories demand to be told.

 

Some are so important, that it’s crucial they be told well.

 

After having gained his trust, defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) begins
what will become a lengthy, seemingly impossible battle to free Mohamedou Ould Slahi
(Tahar Rahim) from his Guantánamo Bay prison.

That simply isn’t the case with director Kevin Macdonald’s oddly flat handling of The Mauritanian, adapted from Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s best-selling 2015 memoir, Guantánamo Diary. It’s available via Amazon Prime and other streaming services.

 

Under the authority of the United States’ post-9/11 “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists” resolution, Slahi, a Mauritanian citizen, was arrested in November 2001; he subsequently was sent to Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp in August 2002. He remained there, without charge, until finally being released on Oct. 17, 2016.

 

Although some probably will argue this point forever, Slahi’s sole “crime” appears to have been guilt by association: most critically, a) a chance call accepted from Bin Laden’s phone; and b) having allowed an al-Qaeda recruit to spend one night at his home. There’s never been any indication that Slahi knew the man before that evening, or ever saw him again.

 

On said “evidence,” Slahi was accused of having recruited the men who flew the planes into the World Trade Center … which obviously didn’t sit well with the interrogators and Guantánamo soldiers charged with extracting a “confession.”

 

This film’s screenplay — by Michael Bronner, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani — bounces between these 2002 events and ’05, when Slahi’s case comes to the attention of renowned defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster). She was an apt choice, possessing the necessary security clearances, and having defended Irish clients against charges of terrorism.

 

Hollander is assisted by the much younger Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley), depicted here as enthusiastic, fresh-faced and rather naïve. (That’s likely unfair to the actual Duncan; the screenplay also omits a third defense attorney, Sylvia Royce, and assigns some of her involvement to Duncan.)

 

Shazam!: Power failure

Shazam! (2019) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, and quite generously, for scary fantasy violence, intense action and relentless mental cruelty
By Derrick Bang

There’s an old parable about three blind men encountering an elephant for the first time.

“It’s a snake,” says the first, having felt the trunk.

With the eager help of Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer, left), who imaginatively suggests a
series of potential powers, the newly christened Shazam (Zachary Levi) discovers
that — among other things — he can shoot powerful lightning bolts from his fingers.

“No, it’s a spear,” opines the second, awed by the long, sharp tusk.

“It’s definitely a tree,” insists the third, unable to wrap his arms around one of the huge legs.

Scripters Henry Gayden and Darren Lemke — and, I’m certain, a sizable number of uncredited “sweeteners” — are the blind men, and this film is their elephant.

Shazam! feels like it was “written” by half a dozen people — one of whom is a sadist — working independent of each other. Apparently the resulting pages then were jammed together randomly, with no attempt to integrate tone, characterization or (God forbid) plot continuity.

And, hey presto! That’s how you get a movie as inept, haphazard and insufferably stupid as this one.

Newbie horror director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation) brings nothing to the party, and how could he? He has no meaningful template, from which to construct anything remotely artistic.

This Frankenstein’s monster of a flick is best described as Big (the 1988 Tom Hanks comedy) meets television’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, with the intelligence of the latter. Adults are advised to steer well clear, and I’m pretty sure even children will curl their lips with disgust.

When superhero movies go bad, they go very bad.

You’d think Warner Bros. would have learned, after 2011’s equally atrocious handling of Green Lantern, that the “Oh, wow; aren’t these powers cool?!” approach to these stories doesn’t work. At all.

Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with humor; indeed, a certain degree of smirky self-awareness is essential. But too much disrespects the nobility of these modern mythic characters, who (for the most part) deserve a measure of reverence. They’re not cartoons.

Gayden and Lemke treat this character — who dates back to 1939 (!) — as if he were a 5-minute Saturday Night Live sketch. Trouble is, this film runs a butt-numbing 132 minutes.

Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Squeakquel: Nuts to 'em!

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009) • View trailer for Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.31.09
Buy DVD: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel • Buy Blu-Ray: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel [Blu-ray]

The law of diminishing returns caught up with the chipmunks.

I call it the Home Alone syndrome, although numerous older examples also exist. A film — generally a comedy — takes the world by storm, so of course the studio rushes a sequel into production. Corporate wonks — who get paid far too much for mistakes of this nature — "analyze" the original picture and conclude that the public was most captivated by the element easiest the quantify and reproduce: the slapstick nonsense.

Although initially delighted to be sent to the school where Alvin and his two
brothers already have become celebrities, gal chipmunks Jeanette, Brittany and
Eleanor eventually are persuaded -- by the villain of this piece -- that their idols
are self-centered jerks. Fortunately, a budding romance between Eleanor and
Theodore evokes a thawing in affairs, just in time for a triumphant musical
climax. Too bad the rest of the film isn't nearly as endearing...

And so the sequel is nothing but slapstick nonsense.

But if you examine Home Alone carefully, you'll notice ample evidence of the film's heart, as young Kevin struggles to cope with having been abandoned, while also attempting to retain some semblance of the Christmas spirit. The pratfall-laden invasion by the burglars doesn't arrive until the very end, and it's actually that much funnier because we've grown to truly care about the little boy they're attacking.

Home Alone 2, in great contrast, skips the character development and goes straight for the stupid stuff. Result: bad sequel.

2007's Alvin and the Chipmunks — no classic to begin with — at least benefited from a script that attempted actual poignance, most of it deriving from the vulnerable Theodore, whose insecurities helped Dave Seville (Jason Lee) find his inner responsible self.

(And yes, I know how silly that previous sentence sounds. Work with me here.)

As a sidebar, we also had Dave's long-stalled efforts to become a successful songwriter, and his goofily endearing attempt to ignite a relationship with the kind-hearted hottie who lived in his adorable apartment complex. These elements complemented and offset the self-centered Alvin's frequent lapses in judgment, not to mention the bad behavior that wreaked havoc within Dave's apartment.

And, most important, we had a villain — music mogul Ian (David Cross) — who represented a genuinely sinister threat: a greedy, manipulative swine who may as well have worn a Snidely Whiplash mustache.

Sigh.

Flash-forward two years, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel has made every mistake possible; it's almost as if somebody maintained a checklist of what went wrong with Home Alone 2 and reproduced it.