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Chicken Little (2005) More at IMDbPro »

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232 comments in total

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41 out of 57 people found the following comment useful :-
Average in every way, 16 February 2006

Author: Ron Mexico from United States

This was a film with a somewhat interesting premise, a somewhat interesting main character, and a somewhat interesting conclusion. This was not a Pixar film: it wasn't designed to appeal to adults. Rather, the writers focus on giving the kiddies a few laughs without leaving the parents comatose with boredom.

And when everything is taken into consideration, the writers succeed. Somewhat.

It's just not a very memorable film. Whreas most kids can watch films like "Shrek" repeatedly because of the sight gags, talented voice-over performances, and hidden jokes that they might not catch the first time around, "Chicken Little" is likely to be forgotten the moment the credits roll. That's not to say that Disney doesn't provide it's standard politically correct message. Of course the best player on the baseball team is a girl (Foxy Loxy). Of course a girl (Goosey Loosey) beats up and humiliates the boy (Chicken Little). Of course the character with the most redeeming social value is physically unattractive (Abby Mallard). And on, and on, and on. Disney also manages to continue its bizarre tradition of creating single father families ("Little Mermaid", "Aladdin", "Beauty and the Beast", "The Goofy Movie"): Chicken Little's mother has, of course, departed for the great unknown.

The relationship between Chicken Little and his father comes across as more annoying than heartwarming. The premise: A father realizes that it's probably not such a great idea to be embarrassed by his son; by the end of the movie, what his own child thinks of him actually takes precedent over the opinions of neighbors and perfect strangers! This message would undoubtedly come across as highly inspirational...if not for the fact that it's so blatantly obvious, hackneyed, and overplayed.

The voice-over's for the film were largely uninspiring, save for amusing performances by Don Knotts and Adam West. "Fish out of Water" was easily the most likable of the bunch (yes, I was suckered by the standard Disney cutesy animated character in their never ending attempt to sell more toys), and he didn't even have a speaking roll. No, "Chicken Little" is not the worst animated film I've ever seen...but memorable, it is not.

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72 out of 124 people found the following comment useful :-
A Fun Movie, 6 November 2005

Author: kanona29 from United States

I'm not going to write a synopsis of the movie since everyone else has done that and besides I want you to go check it out for yourself. If you love animation please do not pay attention to the negative posts here. The movie was pure fun with a few sentimental moments here and there. I think people nowadays have forgotten that movies are there for mostly entertainment purposes. When you can't even enjoy a fun family flick like "Chicken Little" anymore you know something's wrong. Or maybe people are too busy comparing it to Pixar to give it a real chance. who knows?

The movie was FUN. I've seen it twice already and both times the audience enjoyed it and laughed throughout the movie. So for those of you who are genuinely interested in the movie, go read all of the positive posts and you can feel how excitable the movie made many folks feel. It definitely lifted my spirits.

The voice talent for "Chicken Little" was dead on. i thought it would be weird having an adult male's voice for a little tyke such as C. Little, but it works perfectly here. I also thought the character Runt would be annoying, but he turned out to bring many of the laughs within the theater.

I definitely recommend this film to those who are fans of the animated film genre!

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31 out of 46 people found the following comment useful :-
Almost too slight, but a vast improvement on "Dinosaur.", 29 November 2005

Author: Victor Field from London, England

Reviewing "Robots," "The New York Times" opined that when it comes to animation there's Pixar, there's Japan, and there's everyone else (it should be noted that not all Japanese cartoons are good - "Shin Chan," anyone? - but you see A.O. Scott's point). "Chicken Little" definitely falls into the "anywhere else" camp, but while it won't siphon away fans from John Lasseter or Nick Park - especially since Disney's delayed its UK release for a few months, the way they did with "Sky High" (but not "Herbie: Fully Loaded," I notice. Idiots) - it's not DreamWorks-mediocre either.

The House of Mouse's first attempt at computer animated movies without Pixar was the skilfully made but hollow "Dinosaur"; this one is under the auspices of the team behind the wonderful "The Emperor's New Groove," and while it doesn't have that cartoon's spirit it still has some virtues of its own. More deliberately cartoonish in its look and feel than many recent features, it's also probably a little too sentimental for some tastes - an awful lot of the movie involves our feathered hero wanting not only to redeem himself for the whole "the sky is falling" farrago but also to open up two-way communication with his single dad, with all the Family Issues that implies. Fortunately it never really swamps the movie, with the family message never overriding the main intent, i.e. to entertain.

Unlike the inexplicably hugely successful "Madagascar," it doesn't drag and the voice cast (Zach Braff, Garry Marshall, Joan Cusack, et al) doesn't get in the way of the movie's effect; it relies a little too much on popular culture references and songs for its effect (particularly in the opening - that works in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in live action - and in the case of Runt of the Litter, the show-tune-loving pig voiced by Steve Zahn), but it's a colourful, charming little movie that thankfully ends well before it has a chance to wear out its welcome, and it's nice to have a movie with a message that doesn't try to ram it down your throat. There are worse Disney movies that could have been dedicated to veteran animator Joe Grant.

And if nothing else, I defy anyone to find another movie that has the voices of Don Knotts and Patrick Stewart joining in on "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" over the credits...

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121 out of 229 people found the following comment useful :-
The Sky fell all right, but The Story was already a shattered mess, 29 October 2005

Author: zxid3wd from SLC, UT

There have been many, many movies that Disney has put out that I've had a high desire to see "succeed". All in all, most Disney animated movies that have made it to the big screen in the more modern cinema history of, say, from "Beauty and the Beast" all the way up to "Lilo & Stitch" and "Brother Bear", have done that. Perhaps some are only a financial success, like "Treasure Planet", but certainly they were popular enough with one group of moviegoers or another to have a good box office take.

Unfortunately, "Chicken Little" is not a success.

In pooling my thoughts to review this movie, I am so highly disappointed that good animation is its only high mark. In this pivotal point in the history of The Walt Disney Company, where its relationship with Pixar is still on the rocks while a new president is stepping up, I wanted this movie to be a smashing success. I wanted this to be the movie that starts another Golden Age revolution, where it is possible that Disney takes the top spot in producing awesome animated movies.

I fear that there aren't many good storytellers left at Disney Feature Animation, and there didn't seem to by any present for the making of "Chicken Little". The story itself, chronicling the tales of the title character proving to his community that he is not a failure, was a good enough premise. Though it wasn't executed well at all. Instead of solid, premise-building scenes where it's main characters interact well with others (and get the audience laughing along the way), we get a sappy, melodramatic mini-soap with voice actors who don't have a good script...followed immediately by, more times than I'd care to recall, potty humor gags. Judging by the audience of my screening, made up of at least 40% little kids, only they found that funny.

With so many 3D animated movies coming out recently, like "Madagascar", "Robots" and "Valiant", all released this year, many companies are trying to prove their movie-making chops to us movie-goers. They can make a very beautiful looking movie, with wonderfully rendered characters that can move so fluidly and realistic...but the very vital element of sharing a good story is missing in action. It's my belief that a great story without great animation will be a much better movie than one that looks great, but has a weak story. Though, both elements are what made Pixar's "The Incredibles" an Oscar-contending, $265 million hit. Computer animation is, indeed, not the shoe-in, cure-all solution to a great movie.

To boot, "Chicken Little" has a weak soundtrack, composed mainly of songs that were popular at one time or another...to the pre-teen-aged crowd. Instead of beautiful, original, fully-composed songs like "A Whole New World" in "Aladdin" (or anything close to it), we are treated to Spice Girls' "If You Wanna Be My Lover" (complete, by the way, with karaoke subtitles). Unoriginal and highly annoying.

Having sufficiently railed on the movie, it is my belief that the corporate suits in charge of financing Feature Animation have more blame for the steady decline in their movies than anybody working under them. It seems they think they know what makes a successful movie, over-riding many decisions of the animators and storytellers--those who are still at Feature Animation--who have proved they can make great movies. I believe said pencil pushers are what made last year's "Home on the Range" fail, critically and financially.

All in all, I believe "Chicken Little" is a failure that I define as hot having a good story to match its sweet computer animation. In Disney's quest to prove that they are still the Best of the Best, movies like this will prove to the world that they are merely the best of the rest. And we all know that it's not the Disney we grew up on and cherished.

"Chicken Little" gets 4 of 10 stars

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32 out of 52 people found the following comment useful :-
Better than expected, but still needs work..., 10 November 2005

Author: kergillian (kergillian@hotmail.com) from Montreal, Canada

The best non-Pixar Disney film in years. Sure it had a touch of drag, and it was most definitely a kids flick, but one thing that stood out was that it wasn't infested with fart jokes and potty humour, which is a step above most kids films these days.

The CGI was ho-hum, but one thing I liked was the expressiveness which was highlighted by some wonderful voice work by Joan Cusack and Steve Zahn. And Don Knotts was fabulous - we need to find more work for Don Knotts, he's so good! I also loved the Adam West cameo at the end.

The problem with the film was, as pointed out by a few, that the story was thin and they filled the empty spaces with fun moments, like the Spice Girls karaoke scene which cracked me up. More attention should have been made towards a linear plot - but hey, the film wasn't that long, and the fun scenes they used as mortar really did hold it together.

All in all, an amusing film, above average in terms of entertainment, but hardly a classic. I'd recommend it for a fun family outing, as the kids in the theater seemed to really get into it - and I had nearly as much fun hearing all of the kids laughing as I did watching the film. 6.5/10.

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41 out of 70 people found the following comment useful :-
Falls short and doesn't live up to its interesting and entertaining marketing campaign, 6 November 2005

Author: MovieManMenzel from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Chicken Little (Zach Braff) claims that the sky is falling but it turns out later that it's not. Chicken Little is then mocked for the next year because he worried the town for no reason. A year passes by and this time the sky really is falling! So it's now up to Chicken Little to alert the town and prove to them that the aliens are really here!

I was really looking forward to "Chicken Little" after seeing all the trailers but this movie doesn't live up to the hype and falls short. The characters are likable so it's not the characters that make this movie not live up to expectation but rather its story and running time.

The movie clocks in at a measly 77 minutes, which as many know is not nearly long enough for a movie. These days a movie should run no less than 90 mins and this film runs 13 minutes less than that. The whole problem is the story here, it starts off promising but then when the sky really does start to fall, the film feels rushed. The story definitely needed some brushing up on and I fear now for Disney that without Pixar they may really be in trouble. The problem was "Chicken Little" had so much potential and a great marketing campaign but the writers didn't pay any detail to the story to help the film live up to it's expectations.

Disney thinks that hand drawn animation is done for but the problem isn't hand drawn animation, it's the fact that the better stories are going to computer animated films. That is "Chicken Little's" problem. The film is computer animation but it still doesn't have a great story and therefore critics panned it. If someone hand drew "Finding Nemo" with the great and unique story it had, it probably would have done just as good as it did being computer animated. Disney really needs to concentrate more on its stories rather then its animation.

Now it sounds like I am beating up on "Chicken Little" but I don't mean too that much. I actually enjoyed the film but I expected more from it. I wanted a longer film; I wanted a more polished story. I just wanted more from this film in general and like I said the film fell short because the movie just relied too much on its animation and not enough on it's story.

Another problem was that the jokes aren't very fresh and there aren't enough jokes in the script that adults can enjoy as well as their kids. The characters are the best part of the movie especially Runt of the litter voiced by Steve Zahn, Abby Mallard voiced by Joan Cusack and of course Chicken Little himself. The voice talent was great, they just needed a better story to help move the film along better.

In the end, "Chicken Little" is disappointing. It's a decent film that could have been great only if Disney concentrated more on its story rather than on its marketing. The movie on the whole isn't bad, it just isn't great. The characters, voice talent and some of the jokes save the movie from really sinking. This movie is sure to amuse the little ones but once you get past the age of 13, you may not find the film overly amusing. The shame is that movies like "Corpse Bride" and "Wallace and Gromit" which were released into theaters a few weeks ago are far more enjoyable then "Chicken Little" and contain things that both adults and children alike can enjoy like their stories. "Chicken Little" is worth a matinée ticket at the multiplex but not worth full price. If you have kids, take them they will love it even though you may not enjoy it as much as its clever marketing makes you believe.

MovieManMenzel's final rating for Chicken Little is a 6/10. It's decent but had the potential to be so much more!

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15 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
An excellent first movie, 28 December 2005

Author: Cristina from Canada

My son is four years old and I decided that his gift for the second day of Christmas would be his first trip to a movie theater. We scanned the list of titles now playing and Chicken little was pretty much the only option. Narnia or Cheaper by the dozen, for instance, are for much older kids. Mine found Shreck boring (he never had the patience to watch the whole movie on DVD). The same goes for Finding Nemo and pretty much every other movie I tried to make him watch, unless it was after some TV show. I was beginning to fear that we are doomed to watch nothing but Power Rangers forever. But Chicken Little did the trick. He watched it and loved it. In fact, he had the time of his life. He laughed, he screamed, he jumped, he covered his eyes and screamed again, and then he laughed some more.I can't say anything about myself, because I was to busy taking pictures of my kid watching his first movie to pay any attention to the screen, but my 4-year old rated this movie excellent. And I think his opinion is the only one that matters, because the movie is for him, and for other kids his age, not for grown-ups or teens. So please try to see it with the eyes of a little kid, and you might enjoy it better.

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17 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
'Little' Is A Lot To See, 17 March 2007

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

This is yet another of those recently-made animated films that is outstanding. They ("Polar Express," "Robots," "Cars," "Madagascar," "Barnyard," "Ice Age," etc.) all seem to have the following positive characteristics that I found in this movie:

1 - Fabulous colors; 2 - Great artwork; 3 - likable, humorous characters who care about; 4 - excellent jokes, both visually and audibly, many that make adults laugh; 5 - excellent surround sound that is entertaining in itself; and 6 - a nice story without a lot of sexual innuendos and other questionable (for kids) material. Like the old "Leave It To Beaver" TV show, these animated films also end with a positive message for kids and adults.

In fact, I would say that I - as an older adult - have seen more good animated feature films in the past two years than the previous 50 years put together.

The main character in this movie, "Chicken Little" (voiced by Zach Braff) has to be one of the cutest little animated figures I've ever seen. I smiled almost every time they had a closeup of his face with those green glasses.

The colors in this film are very bold and bright, sometimes making my jaw drop. Also, here's another example of a animated movie where there are so many things to see - meaning clever, funny things in the background - you can't possibly catch them all. An added highlight is that this story plays homage, or pokes fun at, previous science-fiction films. How many tongue-in-cheek references can you find to sci-fi movies?

The only complaint I have, and it's minor, is that they could have used a lull or two in the last 30 minutes of this. It's almost too much action but at an overall running time of less than 80 minutes (I'm not including the ending credits), the time is manageable.

Overall, this is another winner. Good stuff!

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7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
When it comes to saving the world, it helps to be a little chicken., 3 April 2006

Author: Jessica Kolk from Brazil

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

''Chicken Little'' is not a bad movie, but for sure I missed Pixar's good humor and jokes in the animation,like in 'The Incredibles'for example. Even being a big fan of 3D computer generated movies, I miss the hand drawn animation cartoon's classics that made Disney so famous, like Bambi,Lion King, Little Mermaid,etc.

Anyway,I think the Fish-Out-of-Water character is very funny, and also remembers me Kenny from South Park every time I see him! (He doesn't speak as Kenny and both use something to cover their heads.:p) I am surprise to know that Joan Cusack is Abby's voice. (it doesn't look like her)

This movie has many elements who makes a big resemblance with the movie war of the worlds and Mars,attack!

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9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
NOT the Masterpiece I'm Sure Disney Envisioned, 13 May 2007

Author: Fiendish_Dramaturgy from .: Fiendish Writings in the Dark :.

This is done well enough to satisfy the most indiscriminate, but even those children in my acquaintance who were above the age of nine were dissatisfied with this animation, citing rough edges, and a complete disregard for detail where backgrounds and set props were concerned.

The story is the familiar story of most movie-goers' childhood, hidden deep, but it is in there, about a chicken who, when hit by something from the sky (pine straw, perhaps?) proclaims the sky is falling, much to the amusement of the other barnyard residents of the chicken's fair village. This has, of course, been Disneyized, made into a father/son thing, and child characters were invented for the further Disneyization to be complete.

This is not great, and offers little for the family, OR adult audiences. This was aimed mostly at the kiddies, and only the younger ones will (at least in my experience) typically enjoy this. Probably because the "dad" in this is a self-centered, faithless mook who cares about no one but himself. Even after he shows support of his son, it's all about "look at me, look how supportive I'm being!" instead of Chicken Little and HIS accomplishments. He sucks as a father, and who wants to see that? There are too many in real life, who suck, for this to be enjoyable.

It rates a 4.0/10 from...

the Fiend :.

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