"insignificant... but with attitude." (Antz (DVD))

Member Name: drewboy

Product:	Antz (DVD)
Date:	13/05/05 (422 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very funny, animation, Characters

Disadvantages: Not entirely suitable for the kiddies...

How would you feel? You are one lowly ant in a colony of millions. Anything that you do is for the good of the colony, you really don’t matter. Even the resident shrink tells you that you have had a breakthrough when you realise your potential as being insignificant. All you do day in and day out, is work with the millions of other worker ants to help construct a mega tunnel that is supposed to be for the good of the colony as a whole.

On the other hand, you could be next in line to the throne, engaged to an emotional inept general, and carry the burden of carrying on your mothers work after she goes. What you wouldn’t give for a moment of complete anonymity where you don’t have a care in the world other than being able to carry about 10 times your own body weight.

So, on a typical night in the local bar, the unlikely happens and the two worlds collide. Princess Bala (Sharon Stone) decides it would be fun to hang out with the lower ants and asks a random guy, namely Z (Woody Allen) to dance. They have one of those ‘moments’ but after a fight breaks out in the bar Z finds out that his new found beau is actually the princess and is willing to try anything to get to see her again. So, he forms a plan to swap places with his soldier buddy Weaver (Sylvester Stallone) so that he can be a part of the walk past parade in front of the Royal Family and hopefully meet up with the princess to. Unfortunately, unbeknown to Z, General Mandible (Gene Hackman) has decided that the infantry is to go into battle with the sworn enemy the Termites, and to Z’s horror, he ends up marching into battle to what turns out to be a massacre. Luckily for Z, he befriends another soldier Barbatus (Danny Glover) who looks out for him in battle and saves his life. Z is the only ant to make it back to the colony and is deemed a war hero but in this, uncovers sinister plans being made by General Mandible and ends up accidentally kidnapping the princes and a whole host of problems happen from then on in with hilarious and dangerous consequences and leads to Z’s great quest for the mythical Insectopia.


Antz, brought to us by Dreamworks Pictures, was one of the early films that utilised the digital revolution and was around the same time as Toy Story and A Bugs Life. It is direct competition with A bugs Life, however this is a very different kind of films, is aimed at a different audience and really only has ants in common with each other. The film itself is a PG certificate and this becomes very evident as you watch the film.

Animation wise, it is a very impressive picture. All the characters move in a very ant like fashion and while they have been ‘humanised’ to a certain extent, retain more of a bug like appearance than you see in A Bugs Life. The intricacies of the workings of the ant colony together with the detail and imposing scale of the great outdoors (the picnic is fantastic!) which goes right down to the top of the grass being shredded in lawnmower fashion, make for a stunning display of the possibilities of computer generated animation.

The storyline while a little basic (little guy defeats the big guy) is full of action and fun filled scenes and is certainly adequate for this type of movie. It basically revolves around the concept of individuality and Z’s struggle to fit into that. It’s the script that helps to carry the stroryline and without a doubt, why the film received its PG certificate. You may think that this is a kids film, but in all fairness, an awful lot of the dialogue and jokes are really quite adult in nature and would simply fly over the heads of young children. For example, one quote that immediately springs to mind is when Z and Bala first get out of the colony and after Bala goes mad at him for the accidental kidnap, he tells her that:

“I was going to let you become one of my most erotic fantasies “

There is also a scene in the bar when Z and Weaver are having a conversation when Weaver tells Z to drink up. He replies to that with:

“call me crazy, but I have a problem drinking from the anus of another animal”

To me, not really suitable for the little kiddies out there. There are some very funny bits in the script, one clever bit that I likes was when Z referred to himself as a “soil relocation engineer” and the scene at the picnic with the Wasps is great.

The master stroke with this film to me, is how the characterisation of the lead roles very much works around the actor or actress that is voicing the part. Woody Allen shines through in Z, and he portrays the character in his well known style. The character of Weaver, is very reminiscent of characters played by Stallone in his past films, Colonal Cutter (the Generals right hand man) played by Chirstopher Walkin, Mandible by Hackman and Bala by Stone all carry the same characteristics of previous parts they have all played. This means that when watching the film, you are able to believe the characters better as you are able to bring in memories of past acting parts, and each actor/actress is able to put across their own personality in a more believable was compared to if they were just putting their voice to a completely different character. Again, this may be lost on younger audience as they may not have seen these people in other films so the effect does not transcend to that generation.

The DVD contains quite a few extra’s on it that give a very good insight into the new (at the time) field of computer generated animation. It has lengthy programs which detail the basics of the art, how the animators used the features of the actors and actresses to animate the ants as well as how they decided on how to design each of the main characters. It has the standard theatrical trailer, behind the scenes and of course, the audio commentary that you can have playing at the same time as the film itself. Also included, is a four page booklet which contains the production notes which is quite interesting to read when you are watching the film for a second or third time.



To conclude, I greatly enjoyed this film and would highly recommend it. That is, to adults! I am not too sure what younger kids would make of it as I do feel that a lot of the humour, concepts and characters would simply go over their heads. Visually, I think they would love it but I am not sure that this would be enough to hole their attention the whole way through. To that end, I have given the film three stars. As a kids film, I think its just too clever and I think that as an animation, most adults would not think about getting a hold of this to watch – but that’s their loss!

So, for kids, I would say A Bugs Life may be better, but for us big kids, this is by far the better film.


Running Time – 80mins

Cast List (from imdb.com)

Woody Allen .... Z (voice)
Dan Aykroyd .... Chip (voice)
Anne Bancroft .... Queen (voice
)Jane Curtin .... Muffy (voice)
Danny Glover .... Barbatus (voice)
Gene Hackman .... General Mandible (voice)
Jennifer Lopez .... Azteca (voice)
John Mahoney .... Grebs/Drunk Scout/Additional Voices (voice)
Paul Mazursky .... Psychologist (voice)
Grant Shaud .... Foreman (voice)
Sylvester Stallone .... Weaver (voice)
Sharon Stone .... Princess Bala (voice)
Christopher Walken .... Colonel Cutter (voice)


Thanks for reading!


drew

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