Old school meets new school for this curious hybrid of Uncle Walt brand cute and Shrek snark. Like many of the studio greats, Disney’s first computer animated feature finds inspiration in a tale familiar to anyone who made it through kindergarten. This time around, however, the titular avian doomsayer has rather more guile than the featherbrain who walked right into Foxy Loxy’s supper-pot.
Once Chicken Little – as voiced by hipster-geek Braff – discovers that the sky is falling in large hexagon shaped pieces, he sounds the sort of hysterical alarm one normally might associate with Fox News reports on the Middle East.
Alas, unable to prove his apocalyptic claims, our dweebish hero becomes a paranoid joke among the cute denizens of Oakey Oaks. Then, this being a very zany Saturday morning affair, a whole bunch of stuff happens.
In no particular order – he struts his stuff on the baseball field, wins back the respect of his dad, has a romantic pre-pubescent dalliance with outsider heroine Ugly Duckling (Joan Cusack), battles a War Of The Worlds derived invasion and dances to the ever distressing sounds of C & C Music Factory.
Predictably, Chicken Little can’t quite replicate the sophisticated double-coding and mind-bending visuals of a Pixar product, but it clucks niftily by on a big-eyed cuddle factor that’s sure to appeal to dateless teenaged girls around Valentine’s Day.