"That's a nice-a donut."
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Chicken Little (2005)
The very beginning of Chicken Little opens with a wholly unserious, jocular little setup where the voice of Chicken Little (Zach Braff) opines on how to begin the film. He first tries out a "once upon a time", then a Lion King opening, and then the closeup-on-a-storybook; finally he settles on "the sky is falling!" and the story begins. The setup in Disney's first in-house CGI animated film seems innocuous, but it manages to represent the whole problem with the movie that is about to follow. It tries to be a cute, but clever, tongue-in-cheek animated story that the whole family can enjoy, peppered with in-jokes and sly pop references for moms and dads. Unfortunately it succeeds in none of these ways, as it immediately becomes a tired, ongoing string of lame throwaway gags and too-obvious spoofs of better material.
The first thirty minutes or so are simply made up of four main scenes: the opening panic (more on that in a moment), a zany sequence where Little goes to school, a dodgeball match, and a baseball game. Each nearly separate and distinct, with little in the way of meaningful plot or real character development. So, back in the beginning of the story Chicken Little causes a ruckus around town when he mistakenly thinks that the sky is falling. It creates a panic, and the even is a great embarrassment to him and his father (Garry Marshall). Move ahead a year and Little and his friends Abby Mallard a.ka. Ugly Duckling (Joan Cusack), Runt of the Litter (Steve Zahn), and Fish Out of Water (he doesn't talk) are the outcasts in school. (Not to mention the fact that they were all blessed with very creative and original names.) But they get more than they bargained for and have a chance to make a real name for themselves when they discover that the sky really does appear to be falling. But will anyone in town believe them this time? Or are they all doomed?
Several movies are parodied in some way or another, including a King Kong gag that is way too telegraphed and, later, much of the second half becomes a giant War of the Worlds take. It is so obviously unoriginal that one characters actually cries that it is like a "war of the worlds" out there. There are also several popular songs that are thrown in without any insight or regard for providing any benefit to the film, other than to maybe pique the interest of any adults who happen to be watching it.
The voice actors all do a fairly solid job, or at least as good as they can with the material. And certainly a few of the scenes had pretty good potential to provide a chuckle or two. But director Mark Dindal, who previously did The Emperor's New Groove, and the rest of the creative team are unable to put the pieces together to make anything very memorable. It really makes you scratch your head in wonder that Disney ditched their traditional hand-drawn animation unit to make movies like this. Chicken Little somehow manages to even throw under other recent mediocre CGI fare like Robots and Shark Tale. I sure hope that Pixar is able to bring some of their magic to Disney, rather than Disney bringing their poison to Pixar.
The Verdict: D+.
Michael Bentley 3:05 PM
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