Review of A Bug's Life (1998) by Filmmaster — 20 Apr 2015

When his ant colony comes under attack from evil grasshoppers, idealistic young Flick sets off to recruit animals who will help defend their honour and lives. He happens upon a disgraced circus troupe who readily agree, with neither party fully aware of what they're getting themselves into...

So one day while browsing through Sky movie channels my wife out of nowhere perked up saying she had only seen part of A Bug's Life so that was the obvious choice and the rest is history. Well, not quite. I saw this movie so many times as a kid that it's ingrained into my skull. I couldn't remember much about the plot, but as soon as it started I was flooded with visuals, characters, jokes, and even emotions it gave me. It's always nice to revisit a blast from the past.

After the flood of memories subsided and I drifted back into reality, the first thing I noticed was the animation. By today's standards it actually looks quite dated, as bizarre as that sounds. You can tell how far computer animation has come over the years. Look at movies like Brave, Rango and How to Train Your Dragon which are bursting with a crisp and sharp attention to detail. You can see every individual blade of grass, every strand of hair, and every reptilian scale. It's easy to forget where it all started. Toy Story was of course the first to make success of it and look great in the process. It's has quickly eased in amongst the classics. A Bug's Life was Pixar's follow-up and so it follows much of animation clunkines that was unavoidable at the time, and yet it certainly developed it. Every Pixar movie developed computer animation just that little bit further and A Bug's Life innovation comes in the way of crowds. It's a movie about ants, so naturally there's going to be a lot of individual bodies to consider. It's not as stark an innovation as Sully's hair in Monster's Inc., but it's definitely worthy of note when you see a vast expanse of ants all brimming with individual character (ironically enough).

The general concept though is nearing genius, unsurprisingly for Pixar. The down-and-out group are ants, so everything is brought to their level. The rival gang are the much larger Grasshoppers which look suitably gnarly. The protagonist we're offered is a clumsy yet ambitious ant who has a slew of genius ideas and inventions, including a telescope made out of a roll of grass and a ball of dew. There are other little touches here and there, like a leaf folded into a cap, cans and barrels standing as bars and nightclubs, various wings sounding more like motorbikes or helicopters, and how brutal rain can be when you're that small. It also opens itself up to various jokes by poking fun at them. The opening scene pokes fun at ants following set trails hilariously, and there's one quote that has stuck with me for all these years - "No Harry! Don't go towards the light! - I can't help it...it's so beautiful...BZZZT".

It's not all airy fairy though. It does genuinely reach some horrifying places at times. Hopper is one of the scariest villains Pixar have ever put out, in no small part to Kevin Spacey's fantastic voice acting. It's such a dominating and threatening presence even without the animated grasshopper body. There's a fantastic scene where he answers why they must go back to the anthill that is sure to have you laughing nervously. You find it funny, but you're quivering in your boots too much to really let your amusement rip. The grasshopper's final arrival is literally shrouded in mist, making it all the more sinister and foreboding, and it's accompanied by some quite dark threats. The horror that always stuck with me as a kid though was Hopper's demise. You don't see anything obviously, but my imagination filled in the gaps and it was distressing, even if he was evil and scary.

It's a worthy addition to the Pixar library, especially considering it was their follow-up to the massive Toy Story. It had cutting-edge animation for it's time, although there's no denying that it's simplicity and clunkiness hasn't aged it well. In true Pixar fashion in manages to be very funny, hugely entertaining, and contain copious amounts of heart (maybe a bit too much?), while not being afraid to scare and disturb. I give A Bug's Life a good 7/10.