Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!

Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! is a 2017 American documentary film directed by Morgan Spurlock. A sequel to the 2004 film Super Size Me, it explores the ways in which the fast food industry has rebranded itself as healthier since his original film through the process of Spurlock working to open his own fast food restaurant, thus exposing some of the ways in which that rebranding is more perception than reality. -Wikipedia

Since Spurlock's long-overdue indictment of the fast food industry in 2004, healthy menu options have become a popular trend, buoyed by clever marketing buzzwords such as organic, artisan, and all-natural. But does any of this really translate to improved alternatives for consumers? In his signature style, Spurlock creates his own fast-food chain from the ground up; he rents space at a chicken farm, conceives a menu, and hires a savvy marketing team to craft a brand that will appeal to health-minded customers. Recognizing how simple it is to follow the FDA's absurdly vague guidelines for applying terms like "free-range" to the food you serve, he opens Holy Chicken!, a restaurant peddling convenience fare under the guise of being better for you. Though he is overtly transparent about the ruse, will anyone actually notice? -Google

Click here for a video version of this review: https://youtu.be/APdHzZZ0cVw

The documentary film Super Size Me made a huge splash when it hit screens in 2004, as Morgan Spurlock ate his way to an unhealthy body in 30 days by eating only McDonalds. Now, 16 years later he is back with a sequel entitled Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!

This time around, Spurlock is once again taking on the fast good giants, but this time from behind the register. In this sequel he sets out to open his own fast food restaurant, and we follow his adventures as he starts from scratch.

There's loosely three storylines in the film, there's Spurlock researching and prepping for the restaurant opening of course, but there's also a look into the chicken industry, known as Big Chicken, along with a fair bit of time spent talking to chicken farmers. I personally found the interviews with the chicken farmers really hard to watch. These classic big burly farmer guys were clearly broken on the inside having been forced to work within the horrible machine that is Big Chicken. They get forced into debt, they are forced to compete with other chicken farms even though they all work for the same employer, and if they get blacklisted by their overlords, their businesses are crippled.

So, while there is the usual Spurlock happy goofy stuff, he balances this with some real serious stuff, and I think he executes this quite well. The other thing he does well is explain how a lot of the buzzwords we hear such as "free range", "all natural", "organic", "cage free" are literally meaningless in reality. There is a great scene where he finds out from the FDA what the minimum requirement was for him to be able to call his chickens "free range" and, spoiler alert - its tiny.

I'm no expert on farming or business or economics, so can't comment on the veracity of the claims made in the documentary. The biggest take away for me though, was the good reminder that fast food companies do not care at all about you other than your ability to consume their food. "Artisanal", "hand made", "hand crafted", and phrases like these are just marketing bullcrap. They are simply used to make you think you are making good choices.

Its a good documentary, it got me thinking, and if you enjoyed the style and tone of Super Size Me then I reckon you will also get a lot out of Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!