When Disney can't hit a tried-and-true fairy-tale adaptation out of the park, maybe it's time to give up the ghost and get Pixar back on the phone.
Chicken Little (2005)
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Reviews Counted:152
Fresh:54
Rotten:98
Average Rating:5.5/10
Consensus: In its first non-Pixar CGI venture, Disney expends more effort in the technical presentation than in crafting an original storyline.
Theatrical Release:10-02-2006
Synopsis: Disney's first venture into the realm of CGI animation (without Pixar) tells the tale of all-animal town Oakey Oaks's most infamous resident, Chicken Little (voiced by Zach Braff), who causes... Disney's first venture into the realm of CGI animation (without Pixar) tells the tale of all-animal town Oakey Oaks's most infamous resident, Chicken Little (voiced by Zach Braff), who causes town-wide panic when he claims the sky is falling. A year later he's still shunned by everyone, including his dad (Gary Marshall), a single rooster with an incredibly wide tie. Determined to end his losing streak, the bespectacled Little joins the baseball team, even though he can barely lift the bat. Luckily his three equally outcast friends have faith in him: a pig with a yen for '70s disco (Steve Zahn); a Harpo Marx-esque goldfish in a diving helmet; and Abby, a buck-toothed female duckling (Joan Cusak). According to her sources in magazines such as Modern Mallard, Abby is sure Chicken Little merely needs "closure" with dad over the sky incident. But when the sky really does start falling due to a full-on alien invasion, and only Chicken Little knows why, dad still doesn't want to believe him. Kids are sure to understand Chick's frustration in this matter, and parents will dig the sly riffs on films like VERTIGO (1958), THE BLOB (1959), INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996), and WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953), as well as Disney's own back catalog. In place of the usual musical numbers, CHICKEN LITTLE includes montages set to Barenaked Ladies songs and reinterpreted pop favorites (the old Art Garfunkel gut-wrencher, "All I Know," is a standout), while celebrity voiceovers come from Harry Shearer, Wallace Shawn, Patrick Stewart, Adam West, and Don Knotts, with Amy Sedaris as the obnoxious "Foxy Loxy." [More]
Starring: Zach Braff, Joan Cusack, Don Knotts, Catherine O'Hara
Starring: Zach Braff, Joan Cusack, Don Knotts, Catherine O'Hara, Steve Zahn, Fred Willard, Garry Marshall
Director: Garry Marshall, Mark Dindal
Director: Garry Marshall, Mark Dindal
Producer: Randy Fulmer
Screenwriter: Steve Bencich, Ron J. Friedman
Composer: John Debney
Studio: Buena Vista Pictures
Reviews for Chicken Little
The computerized animation hasn't got enough pop, the characters are vapid rather than nonsensical or silly, the musical numbers are awful, and the emotional situation of the plot is handled like a large piece of meat at the end of a hook.
There's such a density of visual puns and pop culture reference points, kids and parents are bound to find themselves smiling in spots. The cumulative effect of the film, however, is exhaustion.
While it is colorful and jaunty and filled with benign barnyard creatures, the occasional jokes and pop references aimed for designated guardians in the audience are more insulting than entertaining.
It loses some of its emotional punch as the plot complications pile up.
Chicken Little was mildly amusing at best. There was none of the explosive laughter that fuels the Pixar world. I missed it.
The movie (directed by Mark Dindal, The Emperor's New Groove) swings from sugar buzz to glucose crash a bit too quickly.
Chicken Little settles for what's expedient and safe and, over all, lives down to its title.
Dress it up like a Pixar film all you want, but Disney's latest digitally animated adventure is hardly something to get egg-cited about.
It's almost as if Disney was so nervous about its big chance at computer animation that it crammed in the cheap jokes and disposable music and wayward side plots to make sure it appealed to everyone.
The originality and brightness of Chicken Little resides in its characters, whose names may be familiar from children's books, but whose personalities are unique.
This digitally animated feature is not quite as funny as we may have hoped. But it does have a peculiar, goofy sweetness to it, and the sheer inventiveness of the whole thing makes it pretty enjoyable.
Cuteness trumps horror, and Chicken Little suffices as kiddie entertainment in a moment when there's not a whole lot for youngsters to devour.
More than a loving, clever riff on a fable, Chicken Little is a grade-school primer on the language of movies with a capital M.
Chicken Little is shiny and peppy, with some solid laughs and dandy vocal performances, but even a small child may sense how forced this movie is.
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