In theaters

BREAKFAST ON PLUTO, written and directed by Neil Jordan, based on the novel by Pat McCabe, 135 minutes, rated R.

The new Neil Jordan movie, “Breakfast on Pluto,” isn’t a comedy, though comedy certainly runs through it. It isn’t a mystery or a thriller, though those elements come into play. It isn’t a romance, though God knows there are times when the film practically overflows with it. And it isn’t a road movie, though the main character, Patrick “Kitten” Braden (Cillian Murphy), a transvestite with legs up to here and lashes out to there, has more adventures on the road than most could endure. Or even fathom.

So what is this movie, a good deal of which is set in Ireland and folds into its plot the bombings and bloodshed of the Irish Republican Army? How do you peg it, especially when it also features two computer-generated birds at the beginning and end whose insights into the characters and their situations are put into subtitles?

The quick answer is that you can’t peg it. “Breakfast on Pluto” truly is of its own universe. Its own rules drive it. There is no defining it, so you just go with it.

Adapted by Jordan (“The Crying Game,” “Interview with the Vampire”) from Pat McCabe’s novel, the film is as free-wheeling as the times, particularly when Kitten (whose name is a wee bit more salacious in the book) comes into his own just as the sexual revolution and drug culture of the 1960s and ’70s is gathering thrust.

Though he’d be the first to disagree, on one level Kitten is one lucky cat. In this new mod world where anything goes, his uniqueness is given a measure of elbow room, even in his tiny Irish hamlet of Tyreelin, where he was left at the doorstep of a priest (Liam Neeson) as an infant and eventually raised by a family who couldn’t understand his desire to wear gold lame. Go figure.

Aware of their quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) disagreement of his lifestyle, Kitten decides enough is enough and hits the road, where he hopes to find his birth mother, a woman he has been told looks like the actress Mitzi Gaynor.

His life as a drifter begins when he thumbs a ride out of town. There, he meets up with a band called The Mohawks, in which the lead singer, Billy Hatchet (Gavin Friday), falls hard for him. Their relationship is the launching pad for a life of casual abandon. Since Kitten doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, he allows himself a reckless sort of freedom in which homelessness is part of the equation, but then so are stints in which he works as Stephen Rea’s magician’s assistant and as the talent at a peep show.

Without failure, Kitten always is rescued – he has that affect on people, who tend to want to help him. What affect this has on the movie is that it robs of any sense of urgency surrounding Kitten’s condition. Since there rarely is any question that he won’t survive even the most brutal of situations – and there are a few of them here – the movie lacks the dramatic weight it could have had, had Kitten not been quite so invincible.

As played by Murphy in what is an excellent, absorbing performance, he’s sort of like a transvestite superhero – able to overcome impossible situations and look fabulous while doing it.

Grade: B

On video and DVD

CHICKEN LITTLE, directed by Mark Dindal, written by Steve Bencich, Ron J. Friedman and Ron Anderson, 80 minutes, rated G.

Obviously, this is the source of the current bird flu. Directed by Mark Dindal, Disney’s “Chicken Little” is a lazy, pilfering affair whose energy and depth are driven almost entirely by its soundtrack.

Throughout are tips the amateur filmmaker might wish to avoid. For instance, when Dindal needs a good jolt to bolster his thin story, he doesn’t tweak the script with more effective scenes and better writing. Instead, he resorts to relying on the energy of such hokey ditties as “One Little Slip” and “Shake a Tail Feather” to give the illusion that his movie is humming along.

That trend stretches throughout the film, with Dindal leaning hard on Diana Ross’ “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” to fill our hearts as she bares her soul and Five for Fighting’s “All I Know” to bring down the room as poor Chicken Little falls into a slump. The movie goes further south when it staples those songs to scenes inspired by other movies, particularly “War of the Worlds,” whose writers deserve a credit here, as well as “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Lion King,” “Finding Nemo” and “Alien.”

Pardon me, but what do aliens have to do with the tale with which so many of us grew up? Did an acorn the size of Maine fall on someone’s head in Hollywood? Apparently. And, really, why depart so radically from a long-lasting favorite to make it something it never was and shouldn’t be? Surely sci-fi doesn’t have to enter this universe.

But it does.

The movie begins just as you expect – Chicken Little (voice of Zach Braff) makes a public gaff when he believes a piece of the sky has fallen on his head. Humiliated by a mean herd of classmates, including the vicious, knives-in-your-back Foxy Loxy (Amy Sedaris), he eventually is struck by another chunk of sky, and this time it’s clear that he’s dealing with something of an alien nature. In all of the derivative chaos that ensues, there are a few saving graces-the characters are undeniably cute-though without Pixar at their side, Disney has creatively cooked its own goose.

Grade: C-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and Weekends in Television. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? BDN film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Bambi II – B+

Batman Begins – A

Broken Flowers – A-

Capote – A

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – A-

The Constant Gardener – A-

Derailed – C+

Doom – C+

Elizabethtown – B-

Flightplan – B-

The 40-Year-Old Virgin – A

Good Night, and Good Luck – A-

Guess Who – C+

Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire – B-

A History of Violence – A

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – B-

Howl’s Moving Castle – A-

The Ice Harvest – B-

In Her Shoes – A-

Into the Blue – C-

Jarhead – B

Junebug – A

Just Like Heaven – C+

Kingdom of Heaven – B-

King Kong – C

Kung Fu Hustle – A

The Legend of Zorro – C+

Lord of War – C

March of the Penguins – A

Memoirs of a Geisha – C+

Millions – A-

Mr. Barrington – B

Must Love Dogs – C+

Oliver Twist – B+

Paradise Now – A-

Pride & Prejudice – A

Prime – B-

Red Eye – B+

Serenity – A-

The Skeleton Key – B

The Squid and the Whale – B+

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – B+

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride – B+

Transporter 2 – B-

Undiscovered – D-

Upside of Anger – B

Walk the Line – A-

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit – A

War of the Worlds – B+

The Wedding Crashers: Uncorked – B-

The Wedding Date – B

Zathura – A-