One of Pixar's less successful films

Rating: 5/10 (8 January 2008)

In 1998, an unusual coincidence occurred. The type that can only happen in Hollywood. Two computer animated films were released simultaneously about the world of ants. First off was DreamWorks Antz, an extremely entertaining journey into the social hierarchy of an ant colony. And A Bug's Life from those geniuses at Pixar.
Any Pixar film is worth a watch because they're a delight in just about every respect. Flawless animation. Involving plots. Well defined characters. But most importantly, that shrewd level of intelligence that constantly keeps Pixar head and shoulders above other animated fare.
But A Bug's Life is that rare thing. A Pixar disappointment. Its not a bad film. Pixar have never made an outright terrible film. Even the indifferent response to Cars seemed unwarranted to me.
But A Bug's Life is a Pixar film that left me cold. Perhaps if I hadn't seen Antz first I might have liked it more, but somehow I doubt it. Because Antz is the type of film A Bug's Life wants to be but isn't. Its the one time where DreamWorks got one over on Pixar, instead of nipping at their coattails.
Antz was a film conducted with a mind-boggling sense of detail. It convinced you there was a whole micro-sized world there beneath our feet. The failing of A Bug's Life is its story is so thin. It doesn't have the ambitious scope of most Pixar films, and its characters are some of the studio's most forgettable.
ABL, it has to be said, falls into some very predictable storytelling. You can almost see the clichÃ©s being wheeled into place. The underdog hero. The comic sidekicks. The dastardly villain. There are none of the usual songs that Disney love so much, but ABL might have benefited from some.
The comparisons to Antz are sadly unavoidable. Since it gets right what ABL gets so wrong, they make interesting bedfellows. Although I'm not much of a fan of Woody Allen, he was perfectly cast as the hero of Antz. A put upon ant suffering from peer pressure and his own neurosis. The hero of ABL feels like a lesser developed version of the same character.
Flik, along with all the ants in his colony gather food for a gang of bullying grasshoppers every season. When Flik's bumbling puts a spanner in the works, Hopper (voiced by Kevin Spacey) the leader of the grasshoppers, demands an increase in their yearly supply.
Flik refuses to stand by and watch his people work they're way into starvation, so he goes off to find help, and brings back a bumbling circus troupe of insects. But it doesn't take long for Flik to learn the truth about his would be saviours. Or for them to learn the real reason they've been brought to the colony.
Even the most committed Pixar fan will probably be disappointed with A Bug's Life. A lot of people say Cars was the first fall from grace for the mighty Pixar. This isn't true. ABL was the first dip in quality for this great studio. Fortunately a rarity for Pixar.
ABL is a film that cruises in neutral for far too long. Visually its a treat. Just like any Pixar film. But I preferred Antz' gritty, down and dirty aesthetic. They looked like real ants. The ones here are much too colourful and cuddly. They're much too user-friendly.
The best type of Pixar film is one that opens itself up to a world of possibilities. Finding Nemo presented us with a breathtaking ocean world. The superb Toy Story 2 (also underrated in my opinion) brought Woody and Buzz Lightyear out of the confines of a kids bedroom and into the big wide world where they had one hell of a rollicking adventure!
Because ABL stays in one place for so long the film suffers as a result. Perhaps if it had some engaging characters to focus on, it might have compensated. But nobody here registered with me that much. In fact as I write this, I can't even remember half of they're names.
Flik is pretty disposable as a hero. So is the Ant Queen and Princess. And the circus troupe, though voiced by true talent like David Hyde Pierce and Denis Leary, is never allowed to cut loose.
The only actor who gets into the show with any lasting impression is Kevin Spacey. He makes Hopper wonderfully loathsome. The type of villain you really love to hate. And his comeuppance is very satisfying (if a bit grisly by Disney's standards).
What's missing from A Bug's Life is the smoothness Pixar films usually flow with. There's not a solid enough hook to hang the story from, like there was with Buzz Lightyear finding out he was only a toy. Or little Nemo getting lost in the vast depths of the ocean. A few nice ideas here and there (like a scarily realistic moving bird and some genuinely funny outtakes over the end credits) but A Bug's Life is by far Pixar's most disappointing film.