Decent animation and some humorous moments, but it disappoints because of unappealing characters and a lack of heart.
There are other funny moments throughout the film and some humorous sight gags, but the main characters just aren't lovable or distinctive enough. They seem generic, and that's a shame, because the concept itself seemed decent, and the animation, while it doesn't knock your socks off, is certainly competent. But the characters and a few other things make this one more appealing to the kids than to the whole family. Kids will enjoy the songs that are interspersed, but to adults it will seem like an animal American Idol, and just as self-conscious. There are also way too many long emotional moments and reactions, and too many contrived feel-good scenes. But the kids will like it. Except for one questionable song where Chicken Little's friends do karaoke to the Spice Girls singing "If you wanna be my lover . . .," it's innocuous G-rated fun.
Video:
"Chicken Little" is a texture-rich movie, and with pristine source material that makes it perfect for Blu-ray release. The colors are bright and fully saturated, the black levels are strong so that the contrast and amount of detail is maximized, and with a 1.78:1 picture stretching across the whole 16x9 widescreen monitor it makes for quite the visual feast.
Audio:
The featured audio option is English PCM 5.1 uncompressed (48kHz/16-bit), with additional options in English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 and subtitles in English SDH, French, and Spanish. As with the picture, the sound has a clear and pristine quality to it.
Extras:
Incredibly, here's a Blu-ray release that has MORE features than the standard DVD. Though it's missing "Where's Fish," an interactive trivia game from the first release, this one has an added commentary with director Mark Dindal, producer Randy Fullmer, and visual effects supervisor Steve Goldberg that's worth listening to, along with "All-new" deleted scenes featuring Mayor Lurkey's Pep Talk, Buck's Apology, Something Must Be Done, and Lunch Room B. In addition, there are three "original" deleted scenes with intro that offer three different optional openings, including one with Chicken Little as a girl.
There's also a roughly 20-minute making-of feature that's pretty average but also pretty interesting, and four musical features: The Cheetah Girls singing "Shake Your Tail Feather" and Barenaked Ladies performing "One Little Slip" in music videos, along with "One Little Slip" playable as a sing-along and also Karaoke.
Unfortunately, I was unable to access two additional features for Blu-ray--an Alien Invasion Game and an Interactive Filmmaker Q/A--because of a Java script error that kept coming up on my Samsung BD-P1000.
Bottom Line:
Ostensibly aimed at kids, "Chicken Little" has decent animation and some humorous moments, but it disappoints because of unappealing characters and a lack of heart.
Video:
"Chicken Little" is a texture-rich movie, and with pristine source material that makes it perfect for Blu-ray release. The colors are bright and fully saturated, the black levels are strong so that the contrast and amount of detail is maximized, and with a 1.78:1 picture stretching across the whole 16x9 widescreen monitor it makes for quite the visual feast.
Audio:
The featured audio option is English PCM 5.1 uncompressed (48kHz/16-bit), with additional options in English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 and subtitles in English SDH, French, and Spanish. As with the picture, the sound has a clear and pristine quality to it.
Extras:
Incredibly, here's a Blu-ray release that has MORE features than the standard DVD. Though it's missing "Where's Fish," an interactive trivia game from the first release, this one has an added commentary with director Mark Dindal, producer Randy Fullmer, and visual effects supervisor Steve Goldberg that's worth listening to, along with "All-new" deleted scenes featuring Mayor Lurkey's Pep Talk, Buck's Apology, Something Must Be Done, and Lunch Room B. In addition, there are three "original" deleted scenes with intro that offer three different optional openings, including one with Chicken Little as a girl.
There's also a roughly 20-minute making-of feature that's pretty average but also pretty interesting, and four musical features: The Cheetah Girls singing "Shake Your Tail Feather" and Barenaked Ladies performing "One Little Slip" in music videos, along with "One Little Slip" playable as a sing-along and also Karaoke.
Unfortunately, I was unable to access two additional features for Blu-ray--an Alien Invasion Game and an Interactive Filmmaker Q/A--because of a Java script error that kept coming up on my Samsung BD-P1000.
Bottom Line:
Ostensibly aimed at kids, "Chicken Little" has decent animation and some humorous moments, but it disappoints because of unappealing characters and a lack of heart.
Average user rating (1-5):
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[release]20890[/release]