Chicken Little marks Disney's foray into computer-animated films, a genre that began with Pixar and Toy Story and was built upon by Dreamworks with such movies as Antz and Shrek. The story is based upon the classic children's tale about a chicken who gets hit in the head and believes that the sky is falling (and thus that the world is ending). He then gets everyone into a panic only to discover afterwards that it was just an acorn that had fallen from a tree. As you might imagine, it doesn't take very long to tell this short story and in fact the movie tells it in about 5 minutes or less in the opening sequence.
I absolutely loved this opening sequence. There is utter chaos in this little town inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, and in rapid fire we are introduced to new town members and characters, each a different animal with personalities all their own. This opening scene not only whisks us through the main plotline of the classic tale, but makes us quite accustomed to this town. We really get a good feel for where Chicken Little comes from and how he lives his daily life. And what's more, it gets us laughing constantly for the first several minutes of the film.
At the center of all of this opening mayhem, of course, is Chicken Little, a tiny little chicken boy whose oversized glasses and large head make him just too cute. Of course, he is picked on by nearly everyone at school, except for a couple of his mis-fit friends (one is an ugly duckling named Abby Mallard and the other is an overweight and faint-of-heart pig who is inappropriately but humorously named Runt). In a very funny scene towards the beginning of the film, the gym class is told to split into teams for a game of dodge ball...popular kids on one side and un-popular kids on the other. HAHAHA!
However, the primary relationship brought into focus for Chicken Little is with his father. A former baseball star, this large rooster (who barely fits into his car not unlike Mr. Incredible from The Incredibles) doesn't quite know what to do in raising a son who obviously will not be able to fill the shoes that he once did. And this is where the movie really starts going nowhere. Somehow we get distracted by a sub-plot involving a baseball game where Chicken Little becomes a very unlikely hero, and then we get the feeling that we still need some more filler in order to make this movie last over an hour so then why not throw in some aliens who just might destroy the Earth unless Chicken Little can get people to believe in him and let him and his pals save the day. And WHY do the townsfolk suddenly decide to trust him? You'd think the story would set that up properly, but unfortunately we'll never know.
I've always marveled at Pixar's success and have realized that it isn't really the technology, animation, or effects that make their movies so great, time after time, movie after movie. Rather it is the stories. They have a knack for telling the greatest stories with their films. Unfortunately, that is where Disney falls a bit short with their first attempt with Chicken Little. It is the story that just kinda falls apart on this one and no matter how lovable its characters are, we just sort of lose interest by the end.
Another failure of this movie is with its music. The songs are somewhat painful to listen to and as a result are not at all touching or memorable. On the flip side, the animation is very well done and seeing this movie in 3-D on the big screen was a real treat in that regard. We even got to keep our 3-D glasses which look just like Chicken Little's over-sized green spectacles.
It's cute and worth seeing on the big screen in 3-D if you have the opportunity.
Just don't expect too much from the story.
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