Chicken Little (2005)

Written by Steve Bencich, Ron J. Friedman, & Ron Anderson
Directed by Mark Dindal

I saw this movie the day it opened in theaters. I remember, because it opened on my birthday, and it was a big deal for Disney, because it was their first fully computer animated film that wasn’t actually made by Pixar.

I couldn’t stand it then.

And I can’t stand it now.

Aliens

It takes this film about five minutes to cover the plot of the original story. I think that’s pretty indicative of the problem of this film. It’s a film that is trying too hard to be too many things. It’s the original story (told twice for some reason), it’s a buddy comedy, it’s a loner-that-no-one-understands story, it’s a coming of age story, its a kidnapping story, it’s aliens.

Aliens

Yes, aliens. To me, this is the biggest misstep of the film. What starts as a basic story devolves into a mess, then left-turns into a BIGGER mess by introducing aliens as the reason for the plot. It smells like a desperate attempt to stretch a tiny story into something feature-length, and it also feels like it’s an attempt to try to appeal to a bigger demographic, rather than telling a quality story that actually resonates. It’s as if a focus group said, “Boys won’t see a movie called Chicken Little”, so the filmmakers put aliens in to appeal to them. It hints at the same thinking that changed the names of Rapunzel and The Snow Queen into Tangled and Frozen, respectively (in short, it was thought Princess and the Frog underperformed because of the word Princess in the title, which apparently appealed only to girls).

ALIENS

It’s also just not a well made film. In another sign of stretching of plot, there are multiple montages, set to non-original music (a trend which continues in the next two films). If you love montages, this film is right up your alley. Again, it just belies the problem of too much time, and not enough story.

As far as a final grade, I really am wrestling, but ultimately, I don’t think I will ever be sad if I never have to watch this one again.

FINAL GRADE: F