Kids ‘ get’ chick 2 ick but media critics don’t

The movie theater was * lled

with kids and

grownups. When

Chicken Little

ended, they erupted

with cheers. My

wife, Rachel, and I

and the four oldest

( ages 7- 14) of our

six children were

among them.

Later, we all

talked about what the kids liked the most and what they learned from it. Loyalty to friends. Love of family. Brotherhood and sisterhood and tolerance.

Mostly lots of laughs, sometimes nervously. Like when Runt, a huge pig, repeatedly couldn’t get a vending machine to accept a wrinkled dollar. Runt shook the machine open, grabbed a soda that was needed to “ jet- propel” Chicken Little to the top of the schoolhouse. There he rang the bell warning everyone aliens were coming.

The next day we read newspaper reports and reviews. Chicken Little raked in more than $ 40million its * rst weekend. Audiences loved it. But over 60% of newspaper movie critics panned it, according to rottentomatoes. com. Examples:

uThe New York Times’ A. O. Scott: “ It

. . . has the distinction of being a terrible movie.”

uThe Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter, while calling it witty, added: “ The * lm

. . . chooses family values over sheer nihilism. Drat! I hate when that happens.”

Webster says nihilism is a “ viewpoint that traditional values of life are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless.” Our kids booed that idea and the bad reviews. They asked how anyone could write such stuff in newspapers. I explained to them again about the * rst amendment and a free press.

Karina, our 8- year-old third- grader, offered this suggestion: “ Maybe their newspaper bosses should make those old people take a kid along when they go to a movie to help them understand it before they write about it.”