BEFORE: This is another one of those cases where there were two similar films released in the same year, like "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon". It happens with animated features too, like "Madagascar" and "The Wild", or "Happy Feet" and "Surf's Up". There are only so many animals, after all - I picture some kind of chart in the offices of Pixar and Dreamworks, where the animals used in high-profile releases are crossed off. And I wonder what kind of corporate espionage goes on between the studios, with one trying to scoop the other. Anyway, this film was released the same year as "Antz", and I made a choice - it only took me 13 years to see the other film.
I could link from "Bee Movie" to this via the Jerry Seinfeld connection to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, but that's through a TV show, and it feels like cheating. How about - John Goodman was in "The Big Lebowski" with Steve Buscemi, who was in "Double Whammy" with Denis Leary? Yeah, that'll work.
THE PLOT: A misfit ant, looking for "warriors" to save his colony from greedy grasshoppers, recruits a group of bugs that turn out to be an inept circus troupe.
AFTER: I've lost most of my objectivity after watching so many kiddie films - they're all starting to feel like they hit the same plot points. (How do you parents do it? You learn to tune things out, right?) Neurotic bug, doesn't fit in, looking for his place in the colony (same as in "Bee Movie"), the colony is terrorized by larger, bullying bugs (same as in "The Ant Bully"), and one character has to go on a long-distance quest to find help (same as, umm, every movie?).
All right, I'll admit there's some fresh stuff here. Having an ant who's also an inventor is pretty, well, inventive. And the circus performers being mistaken for warriors, that's original. Having lots of different bug species, each with their own personality, goes a long way toward keeping things fresh.
But there's just as much stuff that seems cobbled together from other movies. The grasshoppers terrorizing the colony - the situation seems straight out of a Western like "High Plains Drifter" or "The Magnificent Seven", or one of those biker films like "The Wild One". The fact that kids wouldn't know about those films definitely works in Disney's favor, though.
Combining that with a very un-possible solution to the grasshopper problem, and I'm thinking the positives and the negatives balance out on this one, so it's a wash. But I also penalize for the phony bloopers at the end (we all know CGI films don't have outtakes, right?) and the unnecessary list of "production babies" - the audience just doesn't care if crew members had kids during production. I know I sure don't.
Starring the voices of Dave Foley (last seen in "3 Men and a Baby"), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (last seen in "Christmas Vacation"), Kevin Spacey (last seen in "A Time to Kill"), Phyllis Diller, David Hyde Pierce (last seen in "Wolf"), Richard Kind (last heard in "Garfield"), Denis Leary (last heard in "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs"), Madeline Kahn (last seen in "Mixed Nuts"), Bonnie Hunt (last seen in "Jumanji"), John Ratzenberger, Brad Garrett (last seen in "Stuart Little 2"), and Hayden Panettiere (last seen in "Remember the Titans").
RATING: 5 out of 10 matchsticks
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