Chicken Little

My seven-year-old son, Benjamin, says Chicken Little is the best movie he's ever seen. (He says this about every movie he genuinely likes, so we know he genuinely likes Chicken Little.) He also says it's a little bit scary, but mostly funny. By "a little bit scary" he means, "There was a part where I hid my face in my mom's arm and asked if we could leave, but I got over it." We may translate "mostly funny" as "I laughed out loud lots of times and even snorted once or twice."

Chicken Little (voiced by Zach Braff) is convinced the sky is falling

There are a few other things you should probably know about Chicken Little. It is not a sequel to Chicken Run; it has nothing to do with that stop-motion animation hit from Aardman Animations (the same studio behind Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit). It is, in fact, a Disney movie—the very first Disney feature created in-house with 3-D computer animation (rather than traditional 2-D, which Disney has mastered for decades).

Chicken Little is essentially Disney's bid to compete with 3-D standard bearers Pixar (Toy Story 1 & 2, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles) and DreamWorks (the Shreks). (Pixar, in fact, has been distributing its films under the Disney name, but that partnership could be on the brink of dissolving, leaving Disney to fend for itself in the 3-D genre.) Time—and sales of movie tickets and Happy Meal toys—will tell if the House of Mouse has orchestrated a successful coup. What's more important to the average parent trying to decide whether to drop $60 on a family visit to the cineplex is whether Chicken Little is a good movie. Benjamin says "yes." His mom says "sort of."

Our protagonist with his friends, Fish Out of Water (Dan Molina) and Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack)

The film's basic premise comes from the old Chicken Little fable, and it opens with a frenetic scene in which the Little Chicken himself—a ...

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