Review of Antz (1998) by Unknown H — 23 Aug 2011

In 1995 Pixar revolutionized the animation industry thanks to their first fully computer animated masterpiece Toy Story. It also sort of revolutionized the cartoon genre as a whole since it was one of the first cartoons that adults could enjoy as much as kids could. Dreamworks animation was aother company on the rise in the genre and in 1998 released Antz, just less than a year before Pixar's similarly themed A Bug's Life. I saw this movie both as a child and just today at school, and I must say I enjoyed it much more this time around.

Antz is about Z, a worker ant tired of his routine life. After meeting the princess ant in a bar he decides that he wants to live differently so he decides to make his quest to Insectopia, a far off city where ants can live without the rule of the colony. Along the way he becomes a war hero, accidentally kidnaps the princess and all kinds of other stuff that doesn't really matter.

The plot is solid. It has a few holes here and there but it's the general idea that's interesting. The concept of a civilization of people, born and sent to work and living every day the same is something right out of a science fiction movie. In fact it's almost identical to a terrible book called The Giver that I was forced to read in public school, which itself was sort of an attempt to make 1984 into a kids book.

The film's characters are good for the most part. Z is voiced by Woody Allen who perfectly captures Z's paranoia and general pecimism. Gene Hackman voices General Mandible, the film's main protaganist and he's good for the most part. My main problem is that a lot of the character's seem kind of lifeless. The Antz voiced by Sylvester Stallone & Jennifer Lopez, as well as the queen and the princess voiced by Sharon Stone just don't seem like people, and lack the attention that was put into Z. There are a few other cases of shineouts, particularly the character voiced by Christopher Walken, but a lot of them are just boring. The film is a classic example of an A-list cast used to make up for dull characters.

The movie's animation is good, but not great. A lot of the textures look bad, as do some of the animations, particularly in the battle scene. I realise that this was only the second film of it's kind but even Toy Story from 3 years before didn't look this, no pun intended, buggy. Pixar's own A Bug's Life suffered from a lot of the same problems which result from showing everyday objects way up close since you're supposed to be small like the Ants, but I didn't think it looked this bad. It at least made up for it with vibrant colours and excellent character animation.

The movie's technical aspects are up to par with any animation really, besides some of Pixar's best movies, but they get the job done. As far as Dreamwork's animation goes this is probably their best movie in a long line of failures with only a few highlights like Shrek or Madagascar.

It's hard not to compare this movie to A Bug's Life. They both are about the same thing, both are cartoons, and both came out the same year. All in all I much prefer A Bug's Life, but it was really more aimed at kids and this one is really aimed at adults, from the themes, the mild language and some of the jokes. The film does have a lot of humour. Most of it comes from Z's one-liners, but my personal favourite moment was the hilarious stoner bugs who lived in Insectopia philosophizing about how what it would be like if they were just insignificant specs in a bigger world. The irony is jsut dripping off that one.

All in all Antz is a pretty good movie. It's Dreamworks Animation's best movie to date, but still lacks the fun or emotion of most of Pixar's movies. It does however combine some great social commentary with some funny dialogue to make it more enjoyable to adults. I'd still go with A Bug's Life but you can't really miss here either.