Chicken Little

The little chicken has descended on our cinema screens, having teased us endlessly with its chicken dance to the tune of Dragostea Din Tei (that numa-ye song) which preceded most movie screenings, in most theatres, until scratches appeared on that reminder to turn off your mobile phone.

Coming from Disney, with its highly featured departure on making 3D animated films with Pixar, I'd consider it quite a good attempt. Watching it in a digital format, the images are clear, sharp, and Chicken Little itself so cuddly, you'd just want to hug it (the soft toy looks a bit out of shape though).

Based on the well known children's tale, an acorn fell on the head of a chicken and it thought the sky was falling, thereby activating its friends to run for safe haven, only to have the fox trick them all into becoming its dinner.

But this is Disney after all, and gruesome scenes like these are censored and reinvented. Here, the original tale is parodied in the beginnning, and the townsfolk reckoned that Chicken Little is a mad little boy, and caused an embarassment to his single parent Father. Being the outcast of school and society, that didn't stop him from being inventive and creative in life (excellent fun sequence I must say), with loyal pals like Runt the fat pig, Fish out of water, and Abby the Ugly Duckling. Besides these characters, I thought it was a good nod to the original tale by incorporating (minor) characters like Turkey Lurkey, Foxy Loxy and Goosey Loosey.

Some might not enjoy Chicken Little, given that we're spoilt with more adult oriented fare like Shrek, or Pixar's always excellent efforts, but I felt it was a refreshing change to watch something simpler. Sure the parodies are there - look out for spoofs on King Kong, the various explicit reference to War of the Worlds, and even Star Wars, but eventually these gave way to its focus on a very basic theme.

That of a child looking for parental acceptance. Chicken Little tries so hard to make his father proud of him, especially after his "Sky is Falling" debacle, that he thought he almost did after a baseball game, but alas, skeletons in the closet return to haunt him, this time, totally unrelated to the original story with the invasion of space aliens. I thought that sequence totally rocked, and was insane, in a good way.

Adam West makes a (voice) cameo as Ace, the Hollywood version of Chicken Litte, which I thought was the best spoof of the entire movie (and brought back memories of his Batman series with his slow, calm voice). Patrick Stewart too lends his voice as a teacher, and given that it's a sheep, the classroom lessons become one of the hardest laughing scene in the movie.

So if you're up for some light entertainment, make it Chicken Little, and no, he does NOT dance to that song, and neither is it played, again. So I do not know why there's so much hate and negative vibes for this movie. Relax! It's about a little chicken trying to find recognition in spite of its size. Give it to him, will ya? What did you say?