Director: Mark Dindal, US, U, 81min
Voice cast: Zach Braff, Joan Cusack, Steve Zahn, Patrick Stewart, Wallace Shawn
On general release
Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from his disapproving dad, if this Disney computer animation is anything to go by. The old fable about the acorn-conked chick who believes that the sky must be falling, has now morphed into a noisy sci-fi fantasy.
It begins with a Lion King sight gag, followed by a Raiders of the Lost Ark sight gag, followed by. . . well, the gagging never ends. After the first false-alarm panic attack of the titular Little (voiced by Braff), the tale takes a breather from all the sky-is-falling stuff for some sub-plotting about baseball, bullies and bonding.
Then another “acorn” turns out to be a tile from a spaceship’s invisible shield, which triggers a tortured War of the Worlds-style alien invasion and an avian fightback to join the film’s Finding Nemo-like exploration of parental limitations and a string of pop-culture references.
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Add in cartoon critters delivering screechy renditions of such 1970s mouldy oldies as I Will Survive and We Are the Champions, and you’ve got a picture buckling under the weight of the pop bric-à- brac heaped on it.
The film relies on fast editing, nervously darting from joke to joke. Under-10s may be diverted by the constant action and our hero’s offbeat sidekicks, including a pig and a goldfish, but the very young might be unsettled by scenes of metal monsters annihilating the townsfolk.
This is Disney’s first in-house attempt at feature-length computer-animation, made at a time when its company ties with its usual CG animators, Pixar, were strained to near-rupture. Recently the Mouse House bought Pixar outright — let’s hope that means we’ll be spared more cartoons that spend too much time delving through the Hollywood recycling bin and skimping on story and character in favour of self-conscious jokes and earsplitting hubbub.
IAN JOHNS