Paladin
11-09-2005, 06:26 AM
Chicken Little, starring the voices of Zach Braff, Garry Marshall, Joan Cussack, Steve Zahn, Patrick Stewart, Don Knotts, Harry Shearer, Fred Willard and Adam West. Directed by Mark Dindal.
Chicken Little suffers from not knowing what kind of movie it wants to be. On one hand, the movie is a story of a kid who feels his father doesn’t believe him or support him. On the other hand, it’s trying to be a comedy about the invasion of the world by space aliens. The two don’t necessarily have to be mutually exclusive, but the way they’re handled, it’s like watching part of a movie aimed at the Elmo set and part of a movie that’ll scare the bejeezus out of those same kids. This is, I believe, Dinsey’s first attempt at a full-length CGI movie without Pixar, and the absence of Pixar is keenly felt in the script, if not the animation. It doesn't help that the trailers and advertising really make it look like a movie in the Monsters, Inc. vein, which appeals to both kids and adults. It isn't, it's a kids' movie start to finish. It had some moments where I laughed out loud, but they were moments, the movie as a whole doesn't have as much adult appeal as the Pixar movies.
Technically, the movie is very well done. The characters are well animated, and the voice acting is spot on. The only time I felt the graphic design failed were some of the long distance shots looking down at the town, where they looked very much like a town map layout that had been designed for a computer adventure game, rather than a town which grew naturally in place. It looked artificial, like it was laid out to get all the key landmarks on the screen at on time. Great if you are moving a character around the screen with a keyboard and mouse, but passively watching, it doesn’t work so well. Speaking of not working so well, there’s the aliens. For much of the film, we see them as menacing robot walkers, not unlike War of the Worlds. They run quickly, shoot laser beams, and can spin their blade-tipped legs around really fast to fly around. They are, in a word, scary. At least, I believe they would be to a five year-old. Especially when their beams vaporize everything they touch, including many of the town’s residents. At the end of the movie, the we see the aliens who have been inside these machines, and they look, well…like troll hair. Brightly colored pointy piles of hair, with eyes. Suddenly we have gone from way too scary to way to cutesy. Why Disney couldn’t just go with some cutesy-fied greys and been done with it is beyond me, but this just didn’t work for me.
Ok, back to the story… Chicken Little thinks he got hit on the head by a piece of the sky, so he rings the school bell and causes a panic in which there is much destruction. This opening montage is wonderful. When Little can’t find the piece of the sky and is hit on the head with an acorn while trying to explain his story, everyone thinks he’s a fool, and he and his dad are forced to lay low and try to avoid any further public humiliation. Chicken Little’s only friends are the usual assortment of geeks and ugly kids we always seem to get in these underdog kid movies, and the school scenes tended to remind me of Napoleon Dynamite. When Chicken is hit on the head by another piece of the sky, he is able to find it and shows it to his friends to prove himself. Unfortunately, it’s not sky. It’s part of an alien space ship, and when the piece puts itself back on, Chicken’s friend Fish Out of Water gets trapped inside. Along with Ugly Duckling and Runt of the Litter, Chicken Little goes inside the ship to rescue his friend and accidently gets followed back out by a baby alien. The alien parents panic and launch a full scale invasion trying to find their kid, and nearly wipe out the whole town before it’s all resolved.
It’s the alien invasion where the movie loses focus for me. On one hand, we spend much of it thinking the aliens realy are vaporizing everything and everyone. This is much too intense for young children. On the other, we have the whole father realizes the son was right and now tries to be supportive while the kid saves the world plotline, which is perfectly aimed at young children (and their parents) while us older audience members who were hoping for something with Pixar’s cross-generational appeal feel like we’re being hit over the head with a morality lesson. Chicken Little tries to be a kid’s movie with adult appeal, and I feel, doesn’t really succeed at either. Disney needs to get more focus in it’s films. If they’re going to make a movie for young kids, don’t let them believe characters have been obliterated for half the film. If they’re going to make a more grown-up animated movie (which they can do…Treasure Planet for example, managed to be a pretty grown-up animated movie) then don’t make the adults seem like clueless idiots (and don’t make the kids seem like clueless idiots either) and don’t hit us over the head with the moral.
Kids and grown-ups both are quite capable of figuring those things out for themselves if Disney would just provide the story. If you have kids betwen 7-12, drop them off to see it while you go see Wallace and Gromitt. Otherwise, just skip it or wait for the DVD (and rent that).
On the smiley scale (1=low 4-high):
Fun: :bg: :)
Thrills: :eek: :eek:
Comedy: :lol: :lol: :p
Fun Factor: :jester: :jester:
Chicken Little suffers from not knowing what kind of movie it wants to be. On one hand, the movie is a story of a kid who feels his father doesn’t believe him or support him. On the other hand, it’s trying to be a comedy about the invasion of the world by space aliens. The two don’t necessarily have to be mutually exclusive, but the way they’re handled, it’s like watching part of a movie aimed at the Elmo set and part of a movie that’ll scare the bejeezus out of those same kids. This is, I believe, Dinsey’s first attempt at a full-length CGI movie without Pixar, and the absence of Pixar is keenly felt in the script, if not the animation. It doesn't help that the trailers and advertising really make it look like a movie in the Monsters, Inc. vein, which appeals to both kids and adults. It isn't, it's a kids' movie start to finish. It had some moments where I laughed out loud, but they were moments, the movie as a whole doesn't have as much adult appeal as the Pixar movies.
Technically, the movie is very well done. The characters are well animated, and the voice acting is spot on. The only time I felt the graphic design failed were some of the long distance shots looking down at the town, where they looked very much like a town map layout that had been designed for a computer adventure game, rather than a town which grew naturally in place. It looked artificial, like it was laid out to get all the key landmarks on the screen at on time. Great if you are moving a character around the screen with a keyboard and mouse, but passively watching, it doesn’t work so well. Speaking of not working so well, there’s the aliens. For much of the film, we see them as menacing robot walkers, not unlike War of the Worlds. They run quickly, shoot laser beams, and can spin their blade-tipped legs around really fast to fly around. They are, in a word, scary. At least, I believe they would be to a five year-old. Especially when their beams vaporize everything they touch, including many of the town’s residents. At the end of the movie, the we see the aliens who have been inside these machines, and they look, well…like troll hair. Brightly colored pointy piles of hair, with eyes. Suddenly we have gone from way too scary to way to cutesy. Why Disney couldn’t just go with some cutesy-fied greys and been done with it is beyond me, but this just didn’t work for me.
Ok, back to the story… Chicken Little thinks he got hit on the head by a piece of the sky, so he rings the school bell and causes a panic in which there is much destruction. This opening montage is wonderful. When Little can’t find the piece of the sky and is hit on the head with an acorn while trying to explain his story, everyone thinks he’s a fool, and he and his dad are forced to lay low and try to avoid any further public humiliation. Chicken Little’s only friends are the usual assortment of geeks and ugly kids we always seem to get in these underdog kid movies, and the school scenes tended to remind me of Napoleon Dynamite. When Chicken is hit on the head by another piece of the sky, he is able to find it and shows it to his friends to prove himself. Unfortunately, it’s not sky. It’s part of an alien space ship, and when the piece puts itself back on, Chicken’s friend Fish Out of Water gets trapped inside. Along with Ugly Duckling and Runt of the Litter, Chicken Little goes inside the ship to rescue his friend and accidently gets followed back out by a baby alien. The alien parents panic and launch a full scale invasion trying to find their kid, and nearly wipe out the whole town before it’s all resolved.
It’s the alien invasion where the movie loses focus for me. On one hand, we spend much of it thinking the aliens realy are vaporizing everything and everyone. This is much too intense for young children. On the other, we have the whole father realizes the son was right and now tries to be supportive while the kid saves the world plotline, which is perfectly aimed at young children (and their parents) while us older audience members who were hoping for something with Pixar’s cross-generational appeal feel like we’re being hit over the head with a morality lesson. Chicken Little tries to be a kid’s movie with adult appeal, and I feel, doesn’t really succeed at either. Disney needs to get more focus in it’s films. If they’re going to make a movie for young kids, don’t let them believe characters have been obliterated for half the film. If they’re going to make a more grown-up animated movie (which they can do…Treasure Planet for example, managed to be a pretty grown-up animated movie) then don’t make the adults seem like clueless idiots (and don’t make the kids seem like clueless idiots either) and don’t hit us over the head with the moral.
Kids and grown-ups both are quite capable of figuring those things out for themselves if Disney would just provide the story. If you have kids betwen 7-12, drop them off to see it while you go see Wallace and Gromitt. Otherwise, just skip it or wait for the DVD (and rent that).
On the smiley scale (1=low 4-high):
Fun: :bg: :)
Thrills: :eek: :eek:
Comedy: :lol: :lol: :p
Fun Factor: :jester: :jester: