Another hit from Pixar

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2003)

There are so many different stories that could be written about the world of bugs and this is an enjoyable one but I hope the creators of this film don't give up on making animated features about insects. The stories that could be used are endless! This story is about an ant colony that has to harvest food for the marauding grasshoppers that fly in every season. One of the ants is Flik (Dave Foley) who has big ideas but is accident prone and when the grasshoppers are about to fly in Flik makes a blunder that destroys the food that was picked for them. The grasshoppers are headed by Hopper (Kevin Spacey) and he threatens the ant colony by telling them that when they return next time there had better be double the amount of food. The colony's Queen (Phyllis Diller) and her daughter Princess Atta (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) are furious with Flik but he tells them about his plan to combat the grasshoppers. His idea is to leave the colony and venture out to find warrior bugs that he will bring back to fight off Hopper and the rest. They agree so Flik walks off to another area where bugs congregate and eventually he comes across a group of insects that want to help. The insects are ex-circus performers and are unaware that Flik wants them to fight grasshoppers. They think that they are brought in to perform for the colony.

This film was directed by John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton who both created "Toy Story" and together they are helping to keep Disney's legend alive and prosperous. They have a good memory for the Disney classics of old and there are many observances (Both clear and obscure) of those films. The computer animation at Pixar seems to be getting better and better and a clear sense of this is the incredibly detailed scenes during the rainstorm. These scenes are a marvel to look at and its hard to figure how they could make these images so rich with intimate details. The story is rather amusing and I was reminded of "The Three Amigos" and "High Plains Drifter" as I watched this. This film came out the same year as "Antz" and I guess the comparisons are inevitable but I think that film has a more adult tone to its story. This film is more in line with its targeted audience of much younger viewers but I did enjoy both films for different reasons. Roddy McDowall is the voice of Mr. Soil and this turned out to be the last film that he ever worked on. This is another very entertaining animated film from the great Pixar Studios and probably the main reason for their success is that even though these stories are aimed at a young crowd both adults and children can enjoy them. They're is enough entertainment for any age group.