Review:A Bugs Life

As is my habit, whenever I go outside, I tend to go see movies. And when I see movies, I tend to post reviews here. So I saw A Bug's Life last night. If you wanna know what I thought about it, hit the link and read my ramblings.

The quickee summary, I loved it.

For starters, they showed the Prequel Trailer. Despite a little kid screaming behind me, I was quite impressed by that on the big screen. I'd seen it in mpeg & on Entertainment Tonight, but its just so much better on a big screen. A few of the shots weren't clear in the versions I had seen, but man they looked great when they were gigantic.

Second, they showed the Pixar short Geri's Game- which I have been wanting to see forever, but living where I do, well, seeing this sorta stuff just doesn't get to happen. It was pretty sweet. I laughed pretty dang hard at several points, its clever and the animation was amazing. The rendering on several objects were great, especially Geri's coat. God that looked real. Amazing.

So after an array of assorted other crappy trailers it finaly was time for the main event. And god was it ever worth the price of admission. The animation is definately vastly improved from its predecessor. The rendering as well. My early complaint was that the ants weren't really all that great looking- they were very cartoony (by design obviously) but they just weren't as cool looking as (ahem) the Antz. But that soon fell to the side as I just accepted that the ants were going to be sort of boring looking, and everything else was going to look amazing.

The plot losely is a combination of The 3 Amigoes and Antz. Basically, an ant (voiced excellently by Kids in the Hall veteran Dave Foley) is far to free thinking. And his strange new ideas causes trouble for his colony. He is sent away by the princess (Seinfeld's Julia Loius Dreyfus) to find "bigger bugs" to help defend the colony from the grasshoppers. He's not suppsoed to return. He goes to town and discovers a band of circus insects featuring a pair of bizarre roley poley bugs that are the primary kiddy comic relief. The most amusing of the bugs is Denis Leary's lady bug. The gag is played up several times, but it doesn't get excessive (I tend to find silly charachter traits wear thin towards the end of a movie most of the time- but Pixar plays this one right)

Our hero thinks these circus performers are real warrior bugs, and he takes them back to the coloney. They follow thinking he's a talent scout. The rest of the movie involves the various bugs working together to prepare for the upcoming return of the evil grashhoppers, and the final showdown. Said showdown occurs in a thunderstorm, with most of the best shots occuring in flight, while dodging gigantic raindrops. Its a sequence that will rival any of your favorite flight battles from other favorite films.

Anyway, lets wrap this up. The story is a tad on the predictable side. No more than your typical Disney offering. Probably better than most. The animation is knock-your-socks-off stunning. Probably better than Antz, but with a completely different look to the rendering. The lighting, shading, rendering etc are all top notch. Pixar has upped the ante for generating the cartoony look for CGI. The voice acting is all excellent. All the charachters are believable and entertaining. Foley & Leary both stand out. And there are enough entertaining famous voices popping out to entertain you throughout. And unlike Toy Story (and virtually every other animated film to come out of the western film world) there are no happy cheerful singalong songs. I tend to enjoy them, but I was glad to see they had been opted out of this one. In the case of TS, they felt terribly glued in, and I was happy to see them stripped from this film.

Lastly, stay for the credits. They have outtakes throughout the credits that are extremely amusing. Bruce Perens name is s'posta be in there, but darn it if I missed it.

This one is worth your money if you are in to animation, kids movies, CGI, or just laughing at clean wholesome fun, and don't mind a slightly predictable. I give it maybe an 8.5 out of 10.