Chicken Little (2005)

Chicken fucking Little. There are very few Disney films more divisive than Chicken Little. Everyone you speak to either loves this movie or they fucking hate it. We aren't quite in Beverley Hills Chihuahua territory here, it never wound up on any universally acknowledged worst movie lists... Chicken Little for what it's worth was received pretty positively and went some way to reversing a dip in fortunes that Disney had been experiencing around the Mid 2000's, but it was no means a return to form for the house of mouse, and by no means a recapturing of the magic. He says... cos... to be honest I've never actually watched this. But I know enough to know that Chicken Little is etched into history as being that one movie that people fucking detested at the time. And Chicken Little was viewed as the most annoying piece of shit since the last annoying piece of shit. Admitting you liked this movie rendered you uncool. Admitting you enjoyed this movie made you a Chicken Little apologist. Maybe... maybe I'm being a bit over the top... But there are people amongst us who have watched this and will chalk it up as one of the worst movies they've ever watched. It is that divisive. But I honestly don't think it can be any worse than that movie, and there is really only one way to find out if it is as bad as that corner of the internet makes it out to be.

After a short opening sequence that ironically pokes fun at Disney's unoriginal movie openings (I'm sure that won't come back to bite them later in the movie...) we see Ace "Chicken Little" Cluck (Zach Braff) cause absolute panic and mayhem in the town of Oakey Oaks when he claims the sky is falling only for it to transpire to be a... admittedly pretty sizeable acorn that fell from a tree. Fast forward 1 year later and the whole town clearly refuses to move on with Little branded crazy and an upcoming movie about him titled "the crazy little chicken" due for imminent release. Little's dad, Buck (Garry Marshall) implores him to lay low for a while but Little has a plan to make up for his mistake: do something to make the entire town proud of him. And after explaining his plan during a round of dodgeball at school to his best friend, and "ugly duckling" Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack) instead implores Little to just try and find closure by talking it over with his dad, but before Abby and the rest of Little's pals can really get through to him, the rest of the schools 'popular' kids start bullying Little, resulting him being flung across the school hall and accidentally triggering the sprinkler system... As his dad picks him up from school, following a dressing down by the school headmaster, Little confides in his dad, who during his school years was the star baseball player, that he too is thinking of joining the baseball team, but his dad implores him to think otherwise, purely out of his own embarrassment... Blatantly ignoring his dad's advice, Little signs up for the baseball team anyway, but despite training hard doesn't even get a look in from the coach with Foxy Loxy (Amy Sedaris) being the star of the team and stealing all the limelight. However at the last game of the season, with only one point away from victory, Little finds himself up to bat when the rest of the team are unable to play. After initially missing the first two strikes, Little knocks it away on the third and is just able to make it back to home plate and score a point for his team, winning them the game and finally winning over everyone's affection. Wow... short film... But uh, no, that's not the end of it. With everything finally perfect in his life again, Little takes a moment to just stare into the night sky and be thankful when all of a sudden: a piece of the sky literally falls into his room! Taking it round Abby's, where she appears to be having a karaoke party with Little's other pals; Runt (Steve Zahn) - a pig and Fish out of water (Dan Molina) - a goldfish in a deep sea diving helmet and by far the best character in this movie... The trio discover the sky piece is actually from the underside of a flying saucer, which, after they follow the piece as Fish flies it through town, reveals itself in the town stadium with 2 robotic tentacley like aliens immerging from the saucer and scuttling off into the night. After the trio climb inside the saucer to rescue their buddy Fish, the aliens suddenly return and catching all 4 inside the ship, they FREAK out, chasing them away and into the night, with Little and friends able to lose them for a moment as they escape and hide in a crop field. Making their way to the school, Little rings the bell again to alert the rest of the town but by the time they make it to the stadium, the aliens have retreated and the ship disappears with the rest of the town convinced that Little is once again crying wolf for no reason, despite both Abby and Runt sticking up for him this time. Even Little's own dad doesn't believe him... leading to him sulking away disappointed again. However, unbeknownst to Little and the rest of the town, a small furry orange guy with 3 eyes escaped from the craft during all the commotion and it watches on from the crop field forlornly as the saucer disappears into the sky... The following morning as Little sulks to himself in his back garden, Abby, Runt and Fish stop by and implore him to talk to his dad, but they are interrupted when the orange guy appears again and after Fish learns to communicate with him, they discover his name is Kirby (wow, soz Nintendo) and that he got left behind by the aliens, but then the entire town is interrupted as the sky literally begins to fall apart and fragments to reveal the whole sky was hundreds of thousands of flying saucers! As they begin to terrorise the town, Kirby reveals that they are his parents returning to rescue him and dashes off leaving the others behind and as absolute chaos breaks out, Little tries desperately to get Kirby under control and stop him getting squashed by rampaging townsfolk. Eventually tracking him down to the cinema, Little is just about to get Kirby back under control, when his dad bursts through the door, frightening Kirby who dashes to hide, and grabbing Little dragging him away to the exit, but Little finally cracks and tells his dad what he's been wanting to say for a long time: that his dad is never there for him, before finally getting it all off his chest. Hid dad is dumbfounded at first but agrees with Little and apologies saying he finds it hard, but that he loves him and the 2 finally reconcile. On a role, Little also pounces on Abby and declares he's always found her extremely attractive and plants a massive kiss on her causing Abby to swoon. Wow, I haven't used that word in years. His dad now on his side, Little and Buck dash into town with an excitable Kirby and after dodging a whole gang of hostile aliens, and with a little assistance from his friends, Little and Kirby are able to make it to the top of the city hall and to the saucer with Kirby's parents onboard. As his dad fights off more rampaging aliens, the three of them are beamed on board the saucer. As one of the aliens begins to interrogate the pair, and they release Kirby back to his parents, the alien reveals itself to be Kirby's father and announces that their punishment is complete demolecularisation! But then Kirby's mum reveals herself and manages to calm the father down who eventually agrees to let them go when Kirby explains that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. As the aliens help the townsfolk put the town back together and return everyone to life that they had zapped into nothingness, they reveal that Earth just so happens to be their favourite spot for picking acorns and announce, in front of the whole town, that had it not been for Chicken Little, they would have vaporised the whole place!

This was... perfectly fine? I mean, it wasn't exactly groundbreaking or anything like that? But it was pretty decent? And although it was pretty formulaic and predictable it at least did things slightly different enough that it made for a different approach to telling the story? I... can't quite understand why this was so hated back in the day? I mean there are some very obvious bones of contention that I will come on to shortly, but overall I thought this was a pretty amusing, pretty entertaining watch?

So let's look at the things immediately wrong with this film: Little's Dad's lack of confidence in him and lack of support. I know, it's a central plot point for the whole movie and it proves itself at the end of the movie when his dad finally owns up to it, but in a way: it paints the negative image that a child has to do something in order to impress and win the affection of their father and at a young, impressionable age, that is really the wrong message to be sending to your target audience. Secondly Chicken Little spends the whole film being ridiculed by the town only to end up winning their respect when he becomes their saviour and again I think the message is all wrong here. The town are painted as really flaky, unimaginative people, easily swayed by public opinion anyway but that's not the point. It kind of paints the message that it's correct to ostracize the outcast and that the town are justified in doing so, and that the problem is that Little just accepts it, rather than standing up for himself at any point. I, personally, think that portrays a negative situation rather than pushing home the virtues of positive reinforcement and it does feel like something of a problem with the movie.

But on the flip side, even with that slightly nagging issue feeling somewhat wrong throughout the entire thing, I still think Chicken Little does have a important message in so far as it casts Little as the unlikely hero who ends up saving the town because he doesn't succumb to the negative treatment from the rest of the townsfolk, and he eventually plucks up... no pun intended... the courage to confront his dad about the way his dad treats him so despite having those negative qualities, in a way, the movie also does enough to portray the opposite in positive qualities, so uh... I guess these 2 points kinda cancel each other out?

So. Remembering that what we are in fact watching here is a movie aimed at children and not a deep psychological cut into societal behaviour... I thought Chicken Little was a pretty enjoyable movie. It does deviate slightly from the path well trodden in that it became less about Little winning over his dads affection and instead more on to Little's coming of age story and overcoming his "mistake" by proving to the town he was telling the truth, and the plot flows incredibly nicely. There is always something happening that is building to the next milestone in the movie and even with the little cut away gags, that are dotted around the movie, they are brief and not distracting enough to deviate away from the main plot line.

The movie also looked fantastic. I know it's 2005 and modern technology and all that, but I still felt it looked beyond just adequate here. The visuals were massively impressive. I loved all the different animal characters and how they were portrayed. Even if only for 1 fleeting unimportant scene, like the puffer fish driver and the cool hedgehog. The level of detail was so intricate and amazing. It was clear a lot of thought, planning and attention was put in to really make the world a chaotic and busy but immersive place. It would have been easy to get lazy with it, but they didn't.

And I know I touched on it earlier, but storylinewise everything was stitched together nicely. There wasn't any moments of the movie that were laugh outloud funny, but there was gags and they were sometimes subtle, sometimes crazy obvious, and always just amusing enough that it got a smile or a chuckle but not enough that it felt like completely over the top humour. Could the movie have been funnier? Well, maybe? But I felt like it was just enough so that it didn't distract away from the central narrative of the film but did enough to provide some light humour and relax the tension a bit.

I feel like I've waxed lyrical a bit far too much beyond really what Chicken Little potentially justifies... but I honestly went into this expecting it to be a goofy, over the top slapstick Disney comedy with no real sense of purpose or direction. And it wasn't really any of those. Initially I feared the worse with the opening dodgeball scene, but the rest of the movie dialled it back a bit after that and it wasn't too ridiculous after all. There are some... questionable thematic choices with Little's character, the way he's treated, and the relationship with his dad, similarly Abby is painted as an outcast owing to her physical appearance which is probably more negative than her redemption arc is positive, and although I feel like the movie struggles with that a little bit, it does manage to overcome it and still be a fun, enjoyable thing. I liked it. And I would let my kids watch it... if I had any... but I can't help but kinda hope they wouldn't read too much into it and be too impressed upon by it and I guess that is probably Chicken Little's biggest problem. But is it a bad movie as such. No. No not all. 3 out of 5.