Chicken Little 2005
When I put together a ranking of Disney animated feature films based on reviews I found on the internet, Chicken Little finished close to the bottom. I was in no rush to see it, but with the end of my Disney+ subscription in sight, I wanted to watch it free rather than pay for it later. Given the poor reviews, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It feels very much like something that Dreamworks or Blue Sky would produce (and feels a lot like Robots, also from 2005). The computer animation can be bad at times, but it was still early, especially for Disney, who were trying to catch up with Pixar. There is a very good voice cast at work and the concept is actually pretty good, but towards the end it gets caught in some tonal contradictions that I will save for a spoiler. One character is a pig and there are too many fat jokes, but he is a pig. Completely unspoiled, I was happy where the plot went after establishing Chicken Little’s character. A lot of elements in the movie have been done plenty of times before, but I think that is almost always true, even moreso now that there are a number of animated features released every year. I think the movie needed more polishing on the story and a few more laughs generally, but otherwise it isn’t horrible.
Written: 01 Mar 2023