The insect CGI derby has begun in earnest. Antz is looking to steal a little thunder from the Disney/Pixar juggernaut by its hurried release over a month before A Bug's Life. But neither Eisner nor Lassiter need to worry about this movie outclassing their upcoming release. Antz tries really, really hard, but it doesn't come close to the beauty, style, animation skill and storytelling ability Pixar had already displayed with Toy Story, and promises with A Bug's Life.
The story takes a while to congeal. You get the feeling that the writers were given the task of bridging some epic set pieces conceived of by the animators: a gritty battle between a huge ant army and an army of termites, the revelation of "Insectopia" -- an insect paradise which is really a trash mound in Central Park, and the impending doom of the ant colony and how the colony manages to avert destruction. As such, the story elements don't really work well. The funny stuff doesn't really elicit laughs, and the action, save for the three big scenes, doesn't really hold your interest. And as for dialogue, the only truly funny exchange was a doody joke in Insectopia between two dung beetles.
The producers of Antz hedged a lot of their bets by bringing in serious star power for the voices, yet they squander the unique gifts that these stars could bring to the movie. For one thing, why waste your time having Woody Allen do the voice of your star, Zee, and not let him take a few whacks at the story? The dialogue the writers put in the mouth of Woody/Zee rings like parody...why not let him speak for himself? Same with Anne Bancroft...if they really wanted a truly funny story to bridge the big scenes, why not call upon her longtime husband Mel Brooks? Of all the big stars in the movie, only Sylvester Stallone acquits himself well, primarily because he is just "doing" himself and his tough-guy schtick. And actually they probably could have saved their money and gotten any number of mimics who do Stallone's voice well to play the role...there was nothing challenging about his part.
Visually, the movie is no great shakes either. The ants all look like humans with antennae and an extra pair of legs grafted onto them. Zee even has a little bit of E.T. in his lineage...way to suck up to Spielberg, guys! ;-) They are not even textured right...it seemed like the PDI folks were trying to get a velvety, matte texture when if you look at an ant it really looks like it's made out of shiny plastic with hairs sticking up out of it. The expressions that PDI got out of the little buggers were pretty good, but there really was no "acting" going on in their faces. Just a lot of mugging, going from one extreme expression to another. There was none of the subtleties of expression that Pixar has achieved in both Toy Story and their Academy Award-winning short, "Geri's Game."
Some of the other insects are pretty amazing...the yellowjacket wasps with their Thurston and Lovey Howell stuffy personalities (and Thurston's penchant for getting sloshed, too) were beautiful, and so were some of the flashier bugs Zee and The Princess meet in Insectopia. And the white, bloated termites looked very real and very frightening...so frightening that I actually heard some of the kiddies in the audience bursting into tears.
Occasionally you saw something pretty in the backgrounds, but when they were out of doors they were trying too hard to replicate real life, and when they were in the ants' subterranean world they didn't use enough imagination...the ant colony was as workmanlike and rote as the ants' own lives. I unfortunately saw the movie in a theatre with improper projection, so the underground scenes looked poorly lit and muddy...to give the lighting department at PDI credit where credit is due, none of the underground clips I have seen on TV have this muddy, dismal look.
I'm looking forward to "A Bug's Life"...unless Disney makes Pixar hew to The Disney Formula, it should rock. In the clips I've seen, character designs are really cool, striking the ideal balance between cartoony anthropomorphism and realism. And the textures look more insectlike to my way of thinking...slick surfaces, shiny carapaces.
However, if the lead ant character starts singing an "I Want" song in one of the first sequences...dammit, I'm out of there...
Photos ©1998 Dreamworks SKG and PDI....All rights reserved under US and International Law. Used under "Fair Use" provisions of the US Copyright Code.
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