CHICKEN LITTLE

RATING:

Starring: Zach Braff, Garry Marshall, Joan Cusack, Steve Zahn, Amy Sedaris, Don Knotts, Harry Shearer, Patrick Stewart, Wallace Shawn, Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara, Adam West, Enrico Colantoni, Patrick Warburton.

Rated G

Boy, I had such high hopes for Chicken Little. I am a huge Disney fanatic, love everything they’ve put out (well, almost everything). But, what I wasn’t a fan of was them getting rid of their entire hand-drawn animation department in favor of computer animation.

Now, of course, in the past, Disney has been able to rely on Pixar to release the 3-D computer films, but Chicken Little was their first – and I hope just a test. Now, I’m writing this and thinking to myself how the animation in Chicken Little was really amazing; it had all the ‘bells and whistles’ that had previously been seen in the Pixar films and in the Dreamworks animated movies, and maybe even more. What I was disappointed in was the story; there was no depth to really any of the characters, even Chicken Little himself.

The first ten minutes of the film is awesome! With a story book open, the audience is into it; when Chicken Little is going to school, we’re there going to school with him. When he calls the town to say ‘the sky is falling,’ we’re all over it! Then, the real plot appears – a dysfunctional father/son relationship; we’ve seen it already – it was with fish and it was called Finding Nemo (and that plot was a lot better). Oh, and the other plot is Chicken Little and his friends try to save the town from an alien attack – cute, but not as well thought out as it could have been.

So let’s talk about the animation, cause I like talking about that – it was much better than the actual film. I’m amazed at what computer animators can do now-a-days. I remember the first Toy Story movie; I mean, you couldn’t get much better than that; but then you had Toy Story 2, A Bugs Life, Monsters Inc., and one of the best films I’ve ever seen The Incredibles. But even Shrek defied a lot of what Pixar was doing.

Now, Chicken Little is not up to the standards of Pixar Animation, but it does actually come close. Some of the characters, sets, lighting, and all around picture quality is incredible. I can remember one shot in the alien’s space ship where you looked down a hallway; the detail of the walls and floor and ceiling was amazing. There was also a shot at the beginning of the film where townspeople are in a movie theater watching a movie; the theater they used was modeled exactly after the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles. We happened to be watching the film at that theater, so it was really neat to see the computer replica version. When Chicken Little decides to join the baseball team, the stadium, the fans, the score board – great!

But, I’ll go back to the story. I was just disappointed; I don’t know what exactly was missing that could have made it better, but a better developed story may have helped. I liked the alien invasion; that was a great side plot. I really liked his friends, Abby Mallard (The Ugly Duckling), Runt, and Fish; the only problem was we really didn’t get to see a lot of them be them. We get pieces of them, but not enough to get all of who they are. What we do get is Chicken Little trying everything he can do to please his dad, and it just doesn’t work – in the film and on screen. I just don’t think kids care about that kind of stuff, and if they did, they got their fill in ‘Nemo.’

And speaking of the kids, watching the film with kids was a good tell of what they thought. And apparently, they were either bored or sleeping, cause they didn’t really make much noise. And when they were making noise, it was talking to other kids during slow parts in the movie. I couldn’t believe how many times there was supposed to be a joke in the movie and then no reaction from the adults or the kids; that happened a lot from the middle of the movie towards the end.

I actually kind of feel bad for Zach Braff, who voices Chicken Little; his first animated feature and it’s not good. I hope he doesn’t get discouraged from doing another one; he was one of the bright spots in the movie. In fact, all the people who voice a character in the film are really good. Joan Cusack plays Abby Mallard, Steve Zaun is Runt, and Gary Marshall lends his vocal talent for Chicken Little’s father.

Well, another thing I hope is Disney gets a lot of money opening weekend because I don’t think the following weeks are going to be profitable – we can only hope The Chronicles of Narnia makes bank.

Disney – the sky fell big time, but it ain’t getting picked up; better luck next time.