...because of its winsome characters, it may appeal to the very young.
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The Disney studios have made and will no doubt continue to make great children's animations, and the best of them have appealed to adults as well as to youngsters, things like "Snow White," "Pinocchio," "Fantasia," "Cinderella," "Lady and the Tramp," "Beauty and the Beast," "The Little Mermaid," and "Aladdin." But their 2005 release "Chicken Little" is mostly for the kids. Given its intended audience, it works well enough. However, this adult viewer was more than a little bored by it.
Interestingly and unaccountably, both of Disney's full-length cartoons for 2005 were CGI animations about small, young birds saving the day. You remember that in "Valiant" a pigeon joined the Royal Air Force during World War II and went on a daring mission. This time it's a chicken that delivers the world from a presumed impending peril. I preferred "Valiant."
The Wife-O-Meter didn't think the youngest of children would care much for the music in "Chicken Little," yet she didn't think children over nine would like the plot line much, either. In other words, she wasn't sure the film would appeal overmuch to any age group. But, as I say, it's mainly for the kids, music or no music.
The story opens in the peaceful hamlet of Oakley Oaks, where farmyard animals live a contented and pleasantly bucolic life. Here reside the Clucks, father Buck (voice by Garry Marshall) and son Chicken Little (Zach Braff). Buck was a big high-school athlete star; his son, in high school now, is something less than that, a fact that bothers Chicken Little and his dad quite a lot. The opening segment shows how a year earlier Chicken Little thought the sky was falling and rang the alarm bell, throwing everyone into a panic. The sky wasn't falling, and Buck was embarrassed for his son.
A year passes, and Chicken Little again thinks the sky is falling. Only this time, he's nearly right. A piece of an alien spaceship falls off and lands on his head. Like the rest of the spacecraft, the piece that hits him can replicate the scenery around it; it camouflages itself. Therefore, the spaceship itself can be hovering over a spot, and it would blend in with the sky and stars. Anyway, poor Chicken Little doesn't know what to do; he doesn't dare tell his father, because he's sure he won't understand or believe him. So he goes to his friends for help, Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack), an ugly duckling; Runt of the Litter (Steve Zahn), an enormous young pig; and Fish Out of Water (Dan Molina), a "Nemo" type who lives on land with a helmet of water encasing his head. They encourage Chicken Little to ring the alarm bell, which he does, only to find that the spaceship has disappeared by the time the townsfolk get up to see it. Again, Chicken Little and his father are humiliated. But the thing is, the spaceship accidentally leaves one of its own children behind, sort of as in "E.T." The aliens come back looking for the child, and only Chicken Little can save the situation, or so it seems, when everybody in the community starts to panic.
Like it or not, I simply couldn't get worked up about a chicken as a hero. He's cute and he's loveable, like most of the characters in the film, but that's it. There's no edge to him; he's just sweet and misunderstood. The relationship with his father is predictable; his dad doesn't listen to him, and we can see where all that will go. The character voices are fine and recognizable--Don Knotts as the goofy Mayor, Turkey Lurkey; Patrick Stewart as the imposing teacher, Mr. Woolensworth; Wallace Shawn as the school's principal, Mr. Fetchit; Fred Willard as the alien dad, etc. But the voices have little to say, and beyond the voice recognition there's not much to appreciate.
The movie is filled with music, but it sounds like the sort of stuff that usually accompanies a Disney direct-to-video release, meaning that none of it is particularly memorable: "One Little Slip," "Stir It Up," "Shake a Tail Feather," and the like. Moreover, the simplicity of the CGI animation style, although entirely fitting the simplicity of the story, never generates much visual delight. It tends only to reinforcement the tedium of the proceedings.
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[release]18079[/release]