Starring (the voices of): Zach Braff, Joan Cusak, Steve Zahn, Patrick Stewart
Cert: U
Released: 10th February 2006

An alarm bell is ringing in the small town of Oakey Oaks. Chicken Little (Braff) is hailing the alert from the bell tower causing widespread panic throughout the anthropomorphised mixed animal community. People are trampled, cars collide and the water tower collapses. Eventually someone comes to their senses to ask what exactly the emergency is and Chicken Little tells them all that the sky is falling down; that a hexagonal piece of stratosphere landed on his head.

Needless to say the townsfolk are dubious and, when his claims are completely unsubstantiated, he is branded as a nutter and his father is publicly shamed.

You would think that after a year people might start to forget about that disastrous day but things just seem to happen to Chicken Little. It is always when he tries to do something right that the smallest of events cause a domino effect of calamities that continue to keep him in the spotlight of trouble-making notoriety. To the continued chagrin of his school and father.

He has a plan. If he could just do one great thing then all past misdemeanours would be put behind him. He would be able to hold his head high again and his father would be proud of him.

Unfortunately 'it' happens to him again. A piece of the sky smacks him on the head but this time he gets his friends to witness the phenomena. Abby Mallard (Cusak), Runt of the litter (Zahn) and Fish out of water are all part of the school 'losers' troupe along with Chicken but are the closest of friends. So they all inadvertently get caught up in the ensuing maelstrom of alien conspiracies, abductions, invasions and father-son bonding.

Chicken Little is another computer-animated film from Disney but this one isn't a Pixar production. It seems that this is an attempt by the House of Mouse to prove to the world that they are capable of producing a comparable film and hoping to belay the worry mongers who have claimed that their purchase of Pixar will dilute the quality of the studio's output.

There have been a lot of naysayers who have said this film just proves the opposite but, really, it's not that bad. The animation, for starters, is vibrant and quirky. All the animals have been beautifully rendered and given some bizarre little physical twist; Chicken Little has his disproportionately large head, Runt is obscenely overweight, Abby is ugly and so on. But even though they have these elements of the grotesque their characterisations make them endearing and, perhaps, it is their flaws that make them acceptable 'actors'.

For a change, Disney has not given the classic tale it's own saccharine slant (if you can get past the 'Little' versus 'Licken' debate) and gone for an all-out parody claiming that the whole acorn story was a misinterpretation. Characters from the original story still remain, are more in the background but still have their own comedic moments - Foxy Loxy happens to be the school champion of everything, Turkey Lurkey (voiced by the unmistakable Don Knotts) is the bumbling town mayor. Other voice talents include Pixar regular Wallace Shawn (Rex in Toy Story), a collection of Christopher Guest's pals Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara and Harry Shearer and a superb cameo from Adam West.

The gags come from the standard array of film references and influences - War of The Worlds, Signs, Mars Attacks and Raiders of The Lost Ark to name a few - and a plethora of animals in the real World jokes. There's enough going on to keep the kids interested and give the adults their own 'grown up' jokes without really alienating either generation.

My only real gripes would be within the storyline itself. Chicken's relationship building with his father is such an almighty rip-off from Finding Nemo that it adds a rather dull undertone to the film and then there's the pacing itself. Yes, it's a kid's film and everyone knows that they suffer from an attention deficit but at a running time of 81 minutes it seems that they just get into the main action and then it's all resolved.

Not a bad film in its own right but certainly no real competition on the storytelling front for Pixar's classics and potentially a signal of impending doom for the studio's future. Some could say it's the acorn...