It's not easy to adjust from Pixar's incredible standard for computer-animated films to the computer animation of Chicken Little. Unfortunately, that shadow bears down on this movie for its full running time. The unavoidable expectation doesn't destroy the film, but it doesn't have the charm or wide-ranging humor that other Disney computer-animated films set as an expectation.
Director Mark Dindal follows up the best Disney animated film no one gave appropriate credit to (Emperor's New Groove) with this mildly amusing effort. Possibly seen as an update to yet another Disney cartoon (a short from the late 1940s with the same name), Chicken Little follows its own path, standing out with its own set of characters and lines.
Voiced by Zach Braff, Chicken Little lives his life constantly reminded of the day he panicked the entire town by claiming the sky was falling. This set-up leads to an alien invasion that spoofs plenty of films, particularly War of the Worlds with its tentacled invaders, released the same year. The path taken to the finale includes countless musical numbers, lots of schoolyard banter the kids will relate to, and enough visual puns to force the audience to study each frame.
At a brisk 80 minutes, Chicken Little contains numerous scenes of easily deleted exposition. The screen is filled with a baseball montage and championship game that serves no purpose when considered in the story as a whole. After this, the story ends up right back where it started. The characters are the same, the plot doesn't adjust, and it becomes 15 minutes of useless time.
This is not to say there is no entertainment value. There are numerous gags to be had and some clever dialogue. Unlike many other recent animated efforts, the humor aims as young as possible. For that audience, the animation doesn't have the attractive sheen of other features. The world is colorful, but the characters fail to carry a lot of personality on screen and the entire movie looks flat.
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