Video/DVD Review: Chicken Little
What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that, for a kids' film, this one
features prominent and repeated images of mayhem. Its opening
sequence, which shows citizens running around in a panic and
screaming, is somewhat frantic; it might be a bit too intense
for some sensitive younger viewers. While much of the action is
benign and cartoonish (crowds in a panic, animal children
playing aggressive dodgeball or baseball and falling from
windows), the film ends up with an alien invasion, with giant
tripods and creatures inspired by
War of the Worlds, and some potentially scary
Predator or
Aliens style music. One character is readable as "gay,"
as he adores disco and cowers before his mother, and another, a
tough, baseball-playing female fox, is transformed into a
traditional girly-girl, as a partly jokey reinforcement of
traditional gender roles.
Families can talk about the relationship between the father and
son, as Chicken Little wants so desperately to please his dad.
How might his father show more faith in his son, rather than
expecting the worst? How might Chicken Little trust his father
to appreciate his own interests and identity, rather than
trying so hard to be the son he imagines his father "wants"
(that is, a baseball player like his father was)?
When well-meaning Chicken Little (Zach Braff) begins the movie by ringing the tower bell in his small town, Oakey Oaks, he thinks he's been hit by a chunk of falling sky. When the residents discover that no chunk is to be found, they call him "crazy" and laugh at him. So, Chicken Little resolves to make his dad proud by becoming a baseball star. But once again, he's hit on the head with another "piece" of the sky. Afraid to tell his father, he shows his friends, who decide that the sometimes-invisible panel is from an alien space ship and the adults need to know. But before they can convince the adults, the kids are abducted by the aliens. When they're returned home, they're followed by an alien child, whose absence incites his parents to attack the town and punish the earthlings. The day will be saved, of course, though not before Oakey Oaks is razed and burned by stomping, ray-zapping alien tripods, and the townsfolk come to realize that Chicken Little has been telling the truth all along.
Cute, colorful, and mostly lively, this CHICKEN LITTLE reimagines the falling sky as invading aliens.
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