THE ANT BULLY (2006) **1/2 (VOICES OF: Zach Tyler, Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Paul Giamatti, Regina King, Bruce Campbell, Lily Tomlin, Cherie Oteri, Larry Miller, Allison Mack, Ricardo Montalban) (Dir: John A. Davis)
Appealing animated family fare.
Ever wonder what it would be like to be the size of an ant? I know I have. Ever since I can recall I always thought it'd be kinda cool to have the ability to shrink whenever I wanted (high school played into it with the girls' showers but that's another film altogether).
Apparently Hollywood has too with its share of animated tales including "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids", "A Bug's Life" and of course , "Antz".
The latest offering is an amalgam of those and even though it is based on a best-selling children's book by John Nickle - and has Tom Hanks as a producer - the tale is timeless in its imagination and it is on full display here.
Lucas Nickle (voiced by Tyler) is a bespectacled shrimpy nerdling who is constantly bullied and picked on and to make matters worse his parents are going away on a vacation without him. So what does he do to take out his anger? What any kid his age would destroy an anthill.
In the process of his malfeasance the tiny ant population is scurrying about doing their insect duties with Zoc (Cage in a giddy, good-natured turn here), their wizardly commander attempting to concoct a defense mechanism and finally finds it just as the environs are being flooded by Lucas' water gun. Upset with his actions, Zoc decides to infiltrate the human's world and later that night brings the potion with him, dripping it into Zach's ear as he sleeps, shrinking him down to size and then having the scared boy carried into the ant hill to get his punishment in the form of a life-lesson: pick on someone your own size!
Zoc leaves Zach to the Head of Council (Mantalban) who deems Zach to Hova (Roberts having a field day here) where he is dispatched to young ant boot camp helmed by the tough yet fare Kreela (King) and tough yet cowardly Fugax (Campbell, a real hoot). Here Zach must learn to respect others and work with the younglings as a group and ultimately learn what it is to be an ant.
Director Davis does a splendid job with the Herculean job of creating the ant universe with towering blades of grass, the horrors of a frog attack, and the march back into Zach's dwelling to get some nourishment for the ants. There the shag carpeting is an unapproachable thicket, the kitchen an empty oasis and his teenage sister Tiffany (Mack) with her mind-only-on-the-next-phone-call, an oblivious giantess (there's a great tracking shot from her flip-flop feet - being literally tinier than her red-polished toes) up, up, up to her attack on the hapless Fugax with some laughs among the gulps.
Yet it is not an instant classic despite how hard it tries, the film's merits of capturing the imagination does work and the stellar ensemble talent (including the comic relief of Giamatti as a truly disgusting exterminator) raises the story above its obvious familiarities.
Appealing animated family fare.
Ever wonder what it would be like to be the size of an ant? I know I have. Ever since I can recall I always thought it'd be kinda cool to have the ability to shrink whenever I wanted (high school played into it with the girls' showers but that's another film altogether).
Apparently Hollywood has too with its share of animated tales including "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids", "A Bug's Life" and of course , "Antz".
The latest offering is an amalgam of those and even though it is based on a best-selling children's book by John Nickle - and has Tom Hanks as a producer - the tale is timeless in its imagination and it is on full display here.
Lucas Nickle (voiced by Tyler) is a bespectacled shrimpy nerdling who is constantly bullied and picked on and to make matters worse his parents are going away on a vacation without him. So what does he do to take out his anger? What any kid his age would destroy an anthill.
In the process of his malfeasance the tiny ant population is scurrying about doing their insect duties with Zoc (Cage in a giddy, good-natured turn here), their wizardly commander attempting to concoct a defense mechanism and finally finds it just as the environs are being flooded by Lucas' water gun. Upset with his actions, Zoc decides to infiltrate the human's world and later that night brings the potion with him, dripping it into Zach's ear as he sleeps, shrinking him down to size and then having the scared boy carried into the ant hill to get his punishment in the form of a life-lesson: pick on someone your own size!
Zoc leaves Zach to the Head of Council (Mantalban) who deems Zach to Hova (Roberts having a field day here) where he is dispatched to young ant boot camp helmed by the tough yet fare Kreela (King) and tough yet cowardly Fugax (Campbell, a real hoot). Here Zach must learn to respect others and work with the younglings as a group and ultimately learn what it is to be an ant.
Director Davis does a splendid job with the Herculean job of creating the ant universe with towering blades of grass, the horrors of a frog attack, and the march back into Zach's dwelling to get some nourishment for the ants. There the shag carpeting is an unapproachable thicket, the kitchen an empty oasis and his teenage sister Tiffany (Mack) with her mind-only-on-the-next-phone-call, an oblivious giantess (there's a great tracking shot from her flip-flop feet - being literally tinier than her red-polished toes) up, up, up to her attack on the hapless Fugax with some laughs among the gulps.
Yet it is not an instant classic despite how hard it tries, the film's merits of capturing the imagination does work and the stellar ensemble talent (including the comic relief of Giamatti as a truly disgusting exterminator) raises the story above its obvious familiarities.