Chicken Little (DVD, 2006, Widescreen)

good disc. Disney's first venture into the realm of CGI animation (without Pixar) tells the tale of all-animal town Oakey Oaks's most infamous resident, Chicken Little (voiced by Zach Braff), who causes town-wide panic when he claims the sky is falling. A year later he's still shunned by everyone, including his dad (Gary Marshall), a single rooster with an incredibly wide tie. Determined to end his losing streak, the bespectacled Little joins the baseball team, even though he can barely lift the bat. Luckily his three equally outcast friends have faith in him: a pig with a yen for '70s disco (Steve Zahn); a Harpo Marx-esque goldfish in a diving helmet; and Abby, a buck-toothed female duckling (Joan Cusak). According to her sources in magazines such as Modern Mallard, Abby is sure Chicken Little merely needs "closure" with dad over the sky incident. But when the sky really does start falling due to a full-on alien invasion, and only Chicken Little knows why, dad still doesn't want to believe him. Kids are sure to understand Chick's frustration in this matter, and parents will dig the sly riffs on films like VERTIGO (1958), THE BLOB (1959), INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996), and WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953), as well as Disney's own back catalog. In place of the usual musical numbers, CHICKEN LITTLE includes montages set to Barenaked Ladies songs and reinterpreted pop favorites (the old Art Garfunkel gut-wrencher, "All I Know," is a standout), while celebrity voiceovers come from Harry Shearer, Wallace Shawn, Patrick Stewart, Adam West, and Don Knotts, with Amy Sedaris as the obnoxious "Foxy Loxy."

We all know the story. Chicken Little got hit on the head by an acorn, got the whole town into a panic by proclaiming "The sky is falling," and then suffered humiliation for his mistake. Clearly, the little guy is in need of some redemption - and, thanks to the folks at Disney - he finally has it. He really did get hit on the head by a piece of the sky - actually, a cloaking panel from an alien spaceship. Redemption doesn't come quickly, however. A full year after the original embarrassing incident (which never faded into the background, thanks to billboards, a book, and a forthcoming movie about the whole fiasco), it happens to Chicken Little again. Even with friends to verify the event, no one believes him yet again, not even his father. It's a terrible thing for a child to tell the truth and have one of his parents not believe him. The trauma of that feeling, even more than the continuing public embarrassment, has haunted Chicken Little ever since the original incident. Buck Cluck loves his son, and he tries to be a good single father to him, but he's really not there for Chicken Little in the bad times. That gulf between an otherwise loving father and son is really the emotional crux of this story, carrying with it a meaningful message to both children and parents alike.
Michael Eisner did at least one good thing during his time at Disney - he saw the original image of Chicken Little as a female and changed the minds of the filmmakers on that score. From that point on, it was smooth sailing - due largely to some wonderful casting for the voice actors. I think Zach Braff is great as the voice of the little hero, but Joan Cusack and Steve Zahn are pretty much perfect as the voices of Abby "Ugly Duckling" Mallard and Runt of the Litter, respectively. With all of their comedic antics, these two characters (along with the amazing Fish Out of Water), really make this a movie that kids are sure to love. Garry Marshall brings Chicken Little's dad to life, while a whole cadre of talented stars, including Patrick Stewart, Amy Sedaris, and Don Knotts, make even the minor characters delightful. The only little issue I might have with this film is the music, and I only say that because a good bit of it goes back two or three decades. When Runt starts doing Bee Gees and Gloria Gaynor songs to keep up his courage, few kids are going to recognize the music - maybe the filmmakers just threw this stuff in as a little extra for adult viewers.

As usual, Disney proves quite generous with the extra features on the DVD. You get the obligatory behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, three alternate openings and a deleted scene, the music video of Shake Your Tail Feathers by The Cheetah Girls (featuring Chicken Little, Ugly Duckling, and Runt getting down with their bad selves), a music video (not to mention karaoke and sing-a-long versions) of One Little Slip by the Barenaked Ladies, a trivia-related game of "Where's Fish?" and sneak peeks at gobs of upcoming Disney releases. The alternate openings are interesting, reflecting the fact that the filmmakers were unsure at first how to introduce the film to the audience, and one of them is quite special indeed, as it features the late Don Knotts narrating the classic tale of the unfortunate little chicken.

I'll never be too old to enjoy a good animated film, and the sort of 3D animation that brings Chicken Little's world to life is still quite an amazing thing to see.

It has been something of an article of faith in the movie industry lately that two-dimensional feature-length animation is obsolete. The kids supposedly want the shiny new 3-D, computer-generated critters and monsters and have no appetite for old-fashioned drawn and tinted cels. Evidence for this trend has been found in the lackluster performance of some of Disney's recent animated features, which seemed not to be capturing the imaginations of audiences enchanted by Buzz Lightyear and Shrek.



So Disney stepped away from the 2-D business on which its empire had been founded and set about catching up with Pixar, its sometime partner, and with DreamWorks. "Chicken Little" is the first Disney-produced computer-animated film, and its publicity material announces that the 3-D version being released in some theaters "has the distinction of ushering in a revolutionary new digital 3-D motion-picture viewing experience." Cluck, cluck! It also has the distinction of being a terrible movie - a hectic, uninspired pastiche of catchphrases and clichés, with very little wit, inspiration or originality to bring its frantically moving images to genuine life.



The story begins tongue-in-beak, with a sendup of the familiar barnyard fable. In a town full of rubbery anthropomorphic animals, Chicken Little (Zach Braff) is a brainy, nerdy fellow who alarms the town with news that the sky is falling. After a year of ridicule - during which he becomes a local laughingstock, and subject of a forthcoming movie - he is ready to move on, as is his father, a nervous widower named Buck Cluck (Garry Marshall).



"Widower" should be the tip-off that, computer-generated or not, we are safely in the familiar land of dead mommies, where entertainment is wrapped in family therapy. Buck and Chicken Little have a lot of healing to do, a process helped by Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack) and accomplished through dreadfully teary soundtrack songs and moments of wet-eyed bonding.



Of course, such sentimentality cannot stand alone. It must be complemented - and also, in a sense, subverted - by jokey pop-culture humor and a kitchen-sink plot. So we have a pig named Runt of the Litter (Steve Zahn), who is passionate about 70's Top 40 hits, giving us a chance to groove, with sagging irony, to Gloria Gaynor and the Bee Gees for the thousandth time. Then, since the idea of a town populated by farm animals is apparently insufficiently exciting for today's sensation-addicted youngsters, there is an alien invasion right out of "War of the Worlds."



Disney, the great pioneer of American family entertainment, has apparently been reduced to turning out knockoffs of well-known products, its own and those of its competitors. Chicken Little's knack for inventions and his posse of misfit friends owes a lot to Jimmy Neutron. There are not one but two cute, antic sidekick types: a fish (whose diver's helmet and incomprehensible chirping is weirdly reminiscent of Kenny on "South Park") and a fuzzy, three-eyed orange alien.



Not to be Chicken Littleish about it, but our children deserve better. They will clamor to see this heavily advertised movie and beg for the tie-in merchandise, and the resulting revenue will be taken as an affirmation of quality. But "Chicken Little" joins "Shark Tale," "Robots" and "Madagascar" as the latest evidence that technical novelty is a cheap - or, rather, a very expensive - substitute for good storytelling and memorable characters.

Now if your a 3 year old this movie, just like all the others it's a hit (Nate my 3 year old nephew just loved it) he laughed at things I didn't really think were funny but thats a 3 year old, He loved the Chicken little character and now believes all chickens are like that, so from a 3 year olds point of view it was good, but he isn't as interested in watching it 20 times like "Cars" or "Toy Story". Nate is our best critic if a movie doesnot hold his interst then it is not worth getting.If it has motercycles or rockets in it and animals that talk and act silly he wants to watch it.(as all 3 year olds do,I hope)This one was full of action with the rockets and all the motorcycles etc so it kept him somewhat amused.

Now my opioion

Chicken Little marks an important first for the Disney company. It's their first fully in-house developed CGI feature after they announced the closure of their long standing award winning traditional hand drawn animation studio. Setup in a time period where Pixar's distribution contract was up in the air, this was Disney's attempt at creating a CGI masterpiece. Sadly where this film lacks is the exact area where Pixar succeeds and that's interesting and engaging story telling aimed primarily at kids but still fun for their parents and other adults who might have to take their kids back to the theater three or four times.

It's not offensive or painful to watch for adults but it's pretty unmemorable. Even though most of us adults have heard and remember the story.
Although we only really watch these movies for the enjoyment of the kids right so I guess sitting through this was fine I have had to sit through worse.As adults we expect the animations at its best and this just wasn't up there like the others
Simply put, an animated movie for the kids more then the parents.

I have to admit, the first time I saw this, I did not like it. But after watching it a second time (and now more than that!), I really enjoy this movie and it is at the top with some of my favorites. The sky is falling, a piece of it hit Chicken Little on the head, but no one will believe him, not even his dad. But each day is a new day, and Chicken Little tries to prove that he isn't crazy. I enjoy the characters. This does get kind of creepy towards the end, so it might scare some kids. All in all, a pretty cool movie!