Chicken Little (November 4, 2005)

This movie was Disney's first fully computer-animated feature film and it shows. The character designs are okay, and their movements are realistic, but the textures are mediocre, and the backgrounds lack material differentiation (the light all hits them the same way). The voice actors produce fine performances but nothing noteworthy. The plot, however, is where the real problems arise. Chicken Little is a tiny Chicken who gets picked on in school, particularly after an incident when he mistakenly thinks the sky is falling. He does not let this get him down, however, and he decides to join his school’s baseball team to follow in his father’s footsteps (he was a former high school baseball star). On the day of the big game Chicken Little unexpectedly hits a home run and wins the game, become a school and town hero. This high comes crashing down, however, when he is proven right about his earlier exclamation and finds alien technology. It turns out aliens visit earth every year to get acorns and, on this trip, they left behind their son. Now the aliens return to earth with the intent to destroy it if they cannot find their child. This plot is so disjointed and convoluted. If the intension was to focus on aliens, then there was no need for the baseball scene- there is no payoff for it as when chicken little “cries wolf” again no one believes him despite his newfound popularity. On the other hand, if the film wanted to focus on the strained father son relationship, then take out the alien invasion and focus instead on the baseball game. You cannot have both. Also, there are also too many pop culture references. They are an attempt at being cool but that just feel out of place and dated. Instead of added to the story they distract from it. The characters are… fine. They have no real personality. The protagonist, Chicken Little, has issues with his father, who never listens to him or believes him. But he never communicates either. He hides the alien technology and creature when showing them to him would be just the proof he needs to make him believe him. The whole situation would have been resolved sooner if he had. This is not to excuse the father’s negligence towards his son, Chicken Little was made to feel that he had to hide his discovery from his judgmental father; a son should never be made to feel this way. Additionally, Chicken Little’s romance with Abigail “Abby” Mallard one of his best friends is weird, sudden, and unnecessary. It is treated as a loose end to tie up instead of an organic relationship and so when they kiss for the first time, I feel nothing. Overall, this film is subpar. Its plot is a mess with no real payoff and is filled with superfluous pop culture references, and characters fail to make an impression on audiences.

Final Rating 2.5/10