Chicken Little

Here is the very last Disney animated feature I hadn’t seen yet. It is also the first completely CGI feature, and the first one to have no VHS release. I think it was the first one to come in a 3D version, too, though I’m not sure about that. And here we have what seems to me a prime example of how a concept can be blown up all out of proportion. We begin with the old tale of “The sky is falling!” and end up with a huge invasion of the planet by aliens bent on destroying us. Turns out they’re only trying to rescue one of their children. Chicken Little meets The War of the Worlds and the Son of E.T. The alien machines even look like the spidery robots in Spielberg’s remake. The movie is designed well, and it has a certain amount of self-aware wit, and some good laughs and amusing sequences. In a classroom teaching Sheep 101, every word translates as baa. In the Little home all the windows are covered with chicken wire. But the story is pretty weak.