Movie Review by Nigel A. Messenger
Starring (voices of): Kevin Spacey, Dave Foley, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss
Director: John Lasseter
A superbly animated feature film about an ant colony whose island home is terrorised year after year by a gang of grasshoppers who force the ants to pay them, with food of course, under threat of death and destruction.
This year though one of the ants, Flick (voiced by Dave Foley), an accident-prone inventor, accidentally destroys the offering of food leaving the ant colony with nothing to pay the grasshopper gang with, so they won’t kill them. Hopper (voiced by Kevin Spacey), the head of the grasshopper gang, gives the ants a deadline by which time they must gather enough food to pay. Knowing this to be an impossible task Flick leaves the colony in search of bugs in the big city that will be tough enough to fight grasshoppers.
Flick ventures into the city but through misunderstanding ends up recruiting the performers of a travelling circus to fight on behalf of his ant colony.
Along a similar theme to the classic THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, except less time is spent enlisting the characters, A BUG’S LIFE is a more entertaining film than many a live action movie. You quickly forget the characters are ants, spend a while marvelling at the superb animation and are constantly amazed at the innovative ideas for props used by the characters. This is a Disney movie that while being great fun for the kids will most likely be enjoyed even more so by adults.
One word of warning – don’t miss the end credits as the makers have imaginatively included outtakes from the movie! Yes they are pretend outtakes, but you just have to see the animated characters supposedly fluffing their lines, checking they are in shot and succumbing to a fit it of giggles.
Great entertainment for all!
