he film opens up trying to consider how it should open up. No "once upon a time," no opening of the book and no brightly colored dawn with an African chant reminiscent of The Lion King. No, it just gets to the story of the day a little bespectacled chicken creates havoc in town by ringing the bell in the city square screaming, "The sky is falling!"
The panic he sets up knocks over the statue of the mayor/turkey (Knotts), destroys a few of the buildings and sends a rolling ball through the theater where an audience is watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, with Harrison Ford being chased by the giant ball.
So the little chicken (Braff) has a big albatross on his shoulders and is determined to make his rooster dad (Marshall) proud. The way to do it is to get the help of his misfit friends from school, including Ugly Duckling (Cusack), Runt (Zahn) and Fish Out of Water (Molina). He trains hard and tries to show up the star player, Foxy Loxy (Sedaris), and with a miracle play he helps win the championship.
But fame is fleeting, and the next day, when he is actually hit with a piece of
metal that turns invisible and sets up the whole "sky is falling" scare once more, he becomes a crazy kid again—and his father doesn't believe him. This time, however, the misfit friends also see that the piece of sky has actually fallen from a spaceship, and the planet could be marked for destruction.
The puns are falling ...
The dialogue, as in Aladdin and other animated films, gets overwhelmed with puns and potentially dated pop-culture references. From the big pig, Runt, saying "He's Luke's father?" to R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World As We Know It" playing while the aliens invade, the references run rampant but sometimes feel kind of stale. There are plenty of film references to E.T. and War of the Worlds, and even direct references to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Movies are on the minds of the small-town animals, so when a movie is being made about the incidents in the town, they worry about
Hollywood getting it right. They do explain crop circles in a funny way, and there are obvious animal references, like the lemmings following each other over the edge, and although some of it may go over the heads of the little ones, it's worth a few laughs. (And so is the voice of Patrick Stewart in a cameo as the odd sheep teacher.)
The chicken and his dad seem to feel a bit like Foghorn Leghorn from the Warner Brothers cartoons. The patronizing dad and his misfit son grow up without a woman in the house, and they make a passing reference to her by looking longingly at a photo. Whether she flew the coop or died of bird flu is unclear, but it does add to Disney's history of killing off the mom in many children's films. And, although the aliens come across as scary for a bit, this is good clean fun for the whole family. It certainly has a lot of goofy characters and cuddly ones to charm kids of all ages. Our family favorite was the defiant fish with the bowl on his head.
The message of the movie seems to turn around all preconceived ideas and upend stereotypes. If you think something is one way, it probably is something else. If you think aliens invading your planet are evil, there may be another side to the story. If you think someone is abhorrently ugly, someone else may find her beautiful. And the disco-loving pig with the large Barbra Streisand collection may end up with the girl at the end.
The movie at the end that is shown to the animals (much like the Austin Powers movie in a movie) is particularly hysterical, especially when Chicken Little suddenly talks like William Shatner and commands a spaceship. Don't fall for the cry that this is "the best movie ever, the best movie ever," but it's a solid entertaining ride.
