Chicken Little (2005)

Movie Info

A young rooster and his father just trying to make it in this crazy world!

Chicken Little has a problem.  After claiming a piece of sky had fallen on him, the whole society believes he mistook an acorn for the sky…causing him to be a laughing stock and the shame of his father.  Chicken Little and his friends are about to discover the truth.  The falling sky is part of an alien invasion centered around their small town of Oakey Oaks.  Now, Chicken Little and his friends must warn the world about the aliens and discover their true reason for coming to Earth!

Directed by Mark Dindal, Chicken Little is the forty-sixth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classic Series.  It takes its origin from the classic fable Chicken Little (or Henny Penny) though the story is largely original.  Following Home on the Range in 2004, Chicken Little was Disney’s first fully CGI animated film.  It received mixed to negative reviews but a relatively strong box office return.

It turns out Chicken Little is part of the Matrix!!!

Chicken Little comes from an extremely forgettable period of Disney.  With the rise of Pixar, Disney was challenged with a real opponent, and Chicken Little was a fledgling attempt to compete with the Pixar films…it doesn’t fair that well.

The movie’s story is really predictable, but also strangely drawn out.  The initial set up of Chicken Little thinking the sky has fallen and no one believing him gets sidelined awhile by Chicken Little’s attempt to play baseball.  While it was a theme throughout the movie, the movie then really gets tied to the idea of Chicken Little trying to impress his father Buck Cluck who looks down on him.  With all these directions and the introduction of the aliens and the return of the falling sky, it seems to pull the story in all directions.

Yes!!! Now there is a weird furry alien thing!

Disney casts an all-star cast for the film, but it is also a bit weird.  Zach Braff stars as Chicken Little, but Garry Marshall as his father Buck is a bit distracting since Marshall’s voice is distinctive (and much older than his character).  Joan Cusack and Steve Zahn play Little’s friends.  Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara, Patrick Stewart, Wallace Shaw, Patrick Warburton, Adam West, Harry Shearer, and Amy Sedaris also fill out the cast.  The movie also represents the last theatrical film of Don Knotts who provides the voice of Turkey Lurkey.

Here come the alien things!

Visually the movie has its moments.  There are some clever visuals, but for the most part, the movie looks like lower grade CGI when compared to animation for films like even Toy Story which predates this film.  Disney did some CGI stuff on Dinosaur which blended real scenes with CGI, but this movie went all CGI.

Chicken Little isn’t that good.  It feels like it doesn’t have the Disney magic or effort put into it and comes out rather lifeless.  It isn’t the worst film you’ll ever seen, but you probably will forget it soon after seeing it.  Walt Disney followed Chicken Little with Meet the Robinsons in 2007.

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