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Review:
 A
great man once said “a great story with lousy animation can work,
but even the best animation cannot save a lousy story.” I forget
the guy's name, but he's absolutely right. While this isn't by any
means a bad movie, it's not something one would expect as an
A-list release from Disney.
Mark Dindal's previous two films were really good. “Cats Don't
Dance” and “The Emperor's New Groove” were among the most
underrated films of their time, thus one would expect “Chicken
Little” to be right up there with the those classics that the
Disney-brand is associated with.
So what happened? It's too clever by half.
The film begins with a parody of beginning Disney ever did. That
means that it's too self aware. Not a good sign. Then we get to
the guts of the matter: Former Okey Oaks high baseball star Buck
Cluck(voiced by Garry Marshall) is thoroughly ashamed of his son
Chicken Little(Zach Braff) because of the world famous “sky is
falling” incident from a couple of years before. The whole thing
is now being produced as a movie-of-the-week and CL is not only
the two pariah, he's one of those on the outs anyway.
Now yet another discussion of the dynamics of school cliques might
be okay if it had something new or original to say, but CL and his
“outcaste” friends Abby “Ugly Duckling” Mallard(Joan Cusack),
Runt-of-the-Litter(Steve Zahn), and Fish-Out-Of-Water(Dan Molina),
who except for the last, who's at least shows a bit of originality
as Harpo Marx-clone, are cliché to the max.
What we've got is about forty minutes of filler while waiting for
the plot to actually start. This is basically Toontown Junior
High” and as such, it's not great. The jokes mostly work, but
their not sidesplitting enough, at the most a bunch of tiny
giggles. This does not a great film make. We don't really care
about any of the characters, not even CL. We felt something about
Woody and Buzz. Not this time.
When the sky does indeed fall and the alien invasion takes place,
only then does the film begin to take off. It's all sitcom, and
we've got about half a movie, that's a damn good half hour, but
that's not enough for eighty minutes in a theater at full price.
Take the kids to a matinee. They'll love it and they'll get in for
half price anyway.
Eric Lurio
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