As the movie industry shivers at its box office numbers, looking for a culprit in all corners, some forward-thinkers examine the theatrical experience, and find it lacking. 3-D has been touted as a possible direction to distinguish the theatrical experience from the ever-increasing exhibition quality of home theaters. After all, you can't get 3-D in your living rooms, right? That'll get you out of the house!

Possibly, but 3-D alone won't cut it. Or, to put it another way after the Chicken Little screening I had this morning, 3-D won't save a horrible, horrible, horrible movie.

But before the roasting begins, let me say that the 3-D process DID look fantastic. The color values of the movie itself, full of rich and lively imagery, was never sacrificed by the glasses, and the action really did pop, and even the slower, not-so-in-your-face moments had a compelling quality to them, drawing you in.

I can't wait to see it used on a movie that wasn't a complete and utter waste.

Chicken Little a charmless collection of every storytelling cliche mechanically separated and soullessly served up in a movie that should have skipped video, and been released direct-to-garbage. Two laughs. That's all it was able to muster from me, and I was trying to be generous.

How unfunny is it? It's TGIF unfunny. That's just how unfunny it is. Imagine if someone took the comedy stylings of all of ABC's wretched shows from the TGIF line-up of a few years back... yeah, that's right: Family Matters, Full House, and Step by Step... put it in to a blender and served it up in a nice frothy concoction, and then spiked it with a melodramatic by-the-numbers father-son character arc that includes -- get this -- includes the zillionth iteration of the tiny child hero sitting on a rooftop at night, gazing at the stars.

It didn't have to be full of knee-slappers. Pixar movies aren't exactly wall-to-wall laughter, but they've got such strong characters and story, you feel great throughout the whole movie. This movie has nothing. Nothing at all going for it. You feel bad. It's a feel-bad movie. You feel bad for everyone involved.

Let's say it wasn't an animated movie. Let's say it was a school play. You'd feel bad. You'd feel bad that these kids spent, what, an entire month and maybe a couple of hundred dollars on scenery, glitter, and gluesticks. But it's not a school play. It's a highly complex animated movie involving hundreds of animators, artists and technicians using millions of dollars of state-of-the-art technology to waste your time and theirs.

Classic Warner Bros. proved that if you don't have the schmaltz, you can go for the jugular with razor-sharp wit, and be a smashing good time. Classic Disney proved that if you don't have the hilarious wit, you can coast on the schmaltz, with doe-eyed characters and stirring violins providing entertainment for the masses.

But what this current incarnation of Disney animation shows is that they've got neither the wit, nor the ability to pull off schmaltz.

Okay, let me circle back to the comedy. Here's how bad it is. Ready?

There's a Spice Girls joke in it. SPICE GIRLS. Torn from the comedy headlines of, what, 1997? This writing makes Jay Leno look cutting edge. The only thing I can credit the writing team with is showing the overwhelming restraint in not having a Macarena joke. Oh, and in a refreshing change of pace, there's no flatulence jokes. Bravo. That's what it's come to, Hollywood. I'm praising you for not making a flatulence joke.

Man, and there's a Striesand joke. Ugh. Can't you just smell the desparation, sweat, latte and therapy oozing from this comedy team?

You know the philosophy that truly evil people don't think they're evil? Well, the most insidious thing about unfunny people is that they don't think they're unfunny. Those are the most dangerous and pernicious ones -- the ones who assume if you tell the joke louder, it'll be funny. The type that latch onto catchphrases and say them at every opportunity, not ever understanding why it should be funny or how to use it.

This person only has a strange, mistranslated superficial grasp of comedy. They blurt out kneejerk statements like "why don't you tell us how you REALLY feel?" as a witty rejoinder, not ever understanding under what conditions such a tired and withered husk of a joke could ever be amusing.

Well, this film is full of that. And it's played at a volume and tempo that makes you want to claw your eyes out.

... but thankfully, your eyes are protected by the glasses that they handed out before the movie began.

ph