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Chicken Little
Lowering the Bar
Reviewed by John P. McCarthy
November 7, 2005
If it weren't standard operating procedure, Disney's saturation marketing campaign
for "Chicken Little" would suggest they were worried about its box office prowess.
Guess what? The studio had good reason to be alarmed, even in this anemic movie year
and on a weekend without much competition.
The sky may or may not be falling in the animals-only hamlet of Oakey Oaks, but at
the Mouse House, the bar for animated family films is clearly inching downward.
"Chicken Little" has the distinction of being Disney's first animated film made
exclusively on computer. That is its only distinction; moreover, it's a distinction
without a difference. There's nothing remarkable about the look of the film, even
when digitally projected, and if you're not moving up in this respect, you're
slipping backward. Besides, your average moviegoer doesn't care how a picture is
made. What matters is the final product.
Overall, "Chicken Little" does nothing to advance animated family films. In addition
to the merely adequate visuals, there's nothing novel about how the fable concerning
an apparently paranoid fowl is handled, the voice work is satisfactory, and only one
character--a pig named Runt of the Litter--is memorable.
The downbeat movie can't shake off the cruel consequences of the scrawny hero's (he
wouldn't pass muster at Purdue, and Zach Braff's voice is unhelpfully generic) false
alarm after being bonked on the head by a falling acorn. He upsets the angry
residents of the town. The only one who believes in him is his smitten schoolmate,
the homely duck Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack). Chicken Little's father, voiced by Garry
Marshall, loses all faith in his unprepossessing son.
He faces more public humiliation than his dad's disapproval. Branded the "crazy
chicken", he becomes the butt of many jokes that take the form of billboards,
websites, bumper stickers, and even a movie. And while the use of cutting-edge
computer technology may be noteworthy, the first third of "Chicken Little" features
old-fashioned cartoon sadism, especially when the popular kids at school square off
against the unpopular ones (guess which side CL is on?) in a distastefully cruel
dodgeball game.
The plucky progeny quickly and miraculously redeems himself on the baseball diamond,
where his father excelled, but the doom and gloom remains. During the final reel, the
movie turns sci-fi when Chicken Little and pals Abby, Runt of the Litter, and a
goldfish called Fish Out of Water thwart an alien invasion.
There's both a structural randomness and predictability to "Chicken Little", which
has no personality or original idea driving it. The message that parents put
excessive pressure on their children has resonance. In contrast, the movie's songs
have very little.
Steve Zahn's swishy, music-loving pig has some funny shtick and gets the biggest
laugh when his irritated mother threatens to take away his Barbra Streisand
collection. Most of the actors lending their voices don't have much to work with as
the characters are hard to distinguish. Not until I read the press notes did I
realize Don Knotts is part of the cast. And while I recognized the voices of Adam
West, Catherine O'Hara, and Fred Willard, they pop up too late (West exclusively in
yet another media parody) and feel wasted.
It's often said kid's movies are aimed at adults, meaning they will enjoy them as
much if not more than children. "Chicken Little" is aimed at adults in a much more
direct way. Parents are relentlessly implored to believe in their kids no matter
what. The degree to which this film, made by the team behind 2000's "The Emperor's
New Groove", is scrambled if not totally botched, reminds us that trust can always be
misplaced.
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