Movie Thoughts: Chickehare and the Secret of the Groundhog (2025)

• Released: June 12th, 2025
• Directed by: Benjamin Mousquet
• Running time: 1h 28min
• Rating 4/5

Synopsis

Chickenhare and his friends go on another adventure to locate an artifact known as the Groundhog With the Backwards Face, who can alter the past. On their way they're being thwarted by a lynx named Crolloq.

My Thoughts

This is one of these movies where I think it has no business being as good as it is. Legitimately, both of th Chickenhare movies have a kinda silly premise, but they're good. If we're talking movies featuring anthro animals, I legit enjoy this more than The Bad Guys 1 & 2, as well as the first Zootopia. And it's not just enjoyment, I think this film is pretty darn good on an objective level as well.

I'll first get the visuals out of the way: This movie looks gorgeous. The character designs are neat, the animation is really good, the environment are creative, and the brief 2D-animated sections look amazing as well. 

Second, I love how this film legit has a bit of lore and quite a bit of backstory to it, but it's all delivered in brief chunks to the point the younger audience could still follow what is happening. I think one pitfall a lot of media with tons of lore/backstory fall into is dumping too much of it at once, making it feel overwhelming. But this movie manages to strike that perfect balance.

I also love how there's no true villain in this story, and how it handles this aspect very well. Crolloq is set up to be the main antagonist, but she's redeemed halfway into the movie when it's revealed that she's just lonely and really just wants her friendship with Meg back. Gina, Chickenhare's sister, is antagonistic throughout a part of the story as well, but I love how the story sets her actions up to be perfectly understandable from her POV, without making her a downright villain. There's even a liar revealed plot point with her (a trope I normally hate), but it's executed so well and never once is Gina truly unlikable throughout all this. 

If anything, the main villain of the story is the rat king from the flashback, but he's featured so briefly that I don't think he really is the big bad here, he's more so the inciting incident that caused the harechickens to go into hiding in the past. But in the story of the here and now, there really are no true bad guys. 

I also just love the relationships between the characters and how well-written they are. I never once doubted stuff like the friendships between Abe, Meg and Chickenhare, or the sibling relationship between Chickenhare and Gina, or the father-son relationship between Chickenhare and the king. They're just legitimately handled really well and feel believable. And they're honestly pretty healthy, I love how these characters actually communicate with each other and talk through their feelings rather well, even if there's sometimes some hurdles along the way. Heck, even Crolloq's and Meg's enemies-to-friends bond was rather well-written and felt believable.  

I'm also glad that the plot finally addressed the origins of Chickenhare and his kind, something the first movie barely even hinted at, which always felt a bit odd. But no, it's all resolved here and in a rather well-done way.

I'll also praise the movie briefly for its comedy. While I'm not usually one to laugh at jokes children's films throw at me, there were a few legit funny moments in this, most notably surrounding Abe and his sarcasm. 

So yeah, I think this is a really solid film and even better than the original. I absolutely recommend both Chickenhare movies, but especially this sequel.