A Bug's Life

A Bugs Life is the first feature from John Lasseter and his Pixar whizzes since their 1995 computer-generated hit Toy Story.

We see the independent-minded Flik (voice of Dave Foley), an ant who has broken away from the ranks and invented a device to make harvesting easier. Although he is sharp and well-intentioned, Flik is also dense enough to repeatedly endanger the colony. He is known to the royal family, and quickly falls in love with the queen's daughter Atta (voice of Julia Louis-Dreyfus). When Flik accidentally ruins the food the ants have gathered for the tyrannical grasshoppers, the colony is faced with gathering twice as much food, or facing the wrath of the larger insects as soon as the last leaf falls. When autumn comes, we are set up for the showdown, and it is an engaging one to watch.

Flik leaves the colony to recruit a band of mercenaries to defend the colony. So far things look like a cartoon version of The Magnificent Seven. But the mercenaries turn out to be wimpy little critters from a travelling flea circus a vampish spider lady, a gluttonous caterpillar, a male ladybird, an intellectual stick insect, who run at the first sign of trouble.

Unlike Antz, A Bug's Life is aimed at a larger audience - though, especially aimed at kids. A Bug's Life has less of Antz's social-political issues and replaces them with cuteness. Antz was a movie about an ant who was a rebel in the colony; the same is true with A Bug's Life. That's where the similarities end.

A Bug's Life is an entertaining film with a decent story and astounding computer-generated animation. The facial features of the ants and their rival grasshoppers possess the elasticity of real faces, and the expressions and body movements mimic actual motion without a hint of choppiness or other animated fraud. Ants aren't the cuddliest of creatures, but once again miracles have been done with facial expressions, subtleties of shadow, shading and texture. And watch those crowd scenes: even the most distant ant has a pair of blinking eyes.

Outstanding talents in A Bug's Life include David Hyde Pierce (as Slim, the walking stick), John Ratzenberger as the circus-owning flea and the coolest man in Hollywood after Samual L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey (as Hopper, the evil leader of the grasshopppers)

Whether you prefer Princess Atta (Bug's) or Princess Bala (Antz), Mandible or Hopper, a war with termites or a battle with grasshoppers will be largely a matter of taste. My own guess is that children will choose the cuter A Bug's Life, while adults opt for Antz, which has darker tones and a richer line-up of "voice talents". A Bug's Life is so dense with characters and illustrative detail and at the end, the movie tops itself with comic outtakes, undoubtedly the funniest finale of any cartoon feature. "Is it better than Antz?", I'll let you decide.

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