The fourth and final act is phenomenal but the rest of it is a bit...... uh............

Rating: 8/10 (2 July 2018)

I loved this film as a kid but nowadays it's not really as good as I thought it was. Not to say that it's bad but honestly it's really really hard for me to decide whether I like this movie or not. Let's talk about the good stuff first, the animation, colors, settings, and character designs are all beautiful, it definitely matches up with the cheerful tone that the film is supposed to match up with. A lot of the voices are really good ranging from Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Denis Leary, Richard Kind, Jonathan Harris, David Hyde Pierce, Brad Garret, Madeline Kahn, and even some of the main Pixar guys voiced a few characters. The most memorable part of the film is the circus bugs, they are the film's biggest highlight, Denis Leary is Francis the Ladybug who's constantly mistaken for a woman, David Hyde Pierce is Slim the Stick-Bug who's always used as a prop, Brad Garret is Dim the Beetle who looks dangerous and tough but is actually a gigantic baby that's supervised by Rosy the Black Widow who's voiced by Bonnie Hunt, a pair of acrobats named Tuck and Roll who don't speak English and are my favorite characters, Jonathan Harris is Manny the Prey-Mantis who is a blind fortune-teller and is married to a gorgeous butterfly named Gypsy who's voiced by Madeline Kahn, every scene they're in is constantly hilarious, there's never a single moment involving where I would say "that's not funny...." or "what was the point of that?" Finally as mentioned in the headline for this review, the best part of the film is the fourth and final act, starting from when the last leaf falls, the grasshoppers have moved into the ant-hill and are forcing the ants to get every last drop of food on the island making them their slaves, Dot being the only ant who believes in Flik tries to convince him and the circus bugs to come back to make things right but Flik doesn't want to because the amount backlash he received from the colony after the truth about the circus bugs was revealed finally convinced him that what the colony thought of him was true, that he was a guaranteed failure who tries to make things better for people but instead always made things worse, Dot convinces Flik that it doesn't matter what people think of you, you can always achieve your goals if you just believe in yourself, thus Flik agrees to make things right by using the bird that he and the others built, at first it starts off really well but then it accidentally gets sabotaged, Hopper then forces Thumper to beat him half to death in front of everyone to teach them a lesson saying that ants were put on Earth to serve grasshoppers, but Flik convinces everyone otherwise by saying the best line in the movie, "Ants are not meant to serve grasshoppers. I've seen these ants do great things, and year after year they somehow manage to pick food for themselves and you. So who is the weaker species? Ants don't serve grasshoppers! It's you who need us! We're a lot stronger than you say we are... And you know it, don't you?" Hopper fed up with Flik decides to kill him himself but right when he's about to Princess Atta and the other ants become convinced that they were wrong and stand up for themselves giving us that triumphant feeling that lots of epic climaxes give us, the battle between ants and grasshoppers begins with the all the grasshoppers getting scared away and Hopper about to get shot out of a cannon, but suddenly it starts to rain, which gives Hopper the advantage of grabbing Flik to finish him off, Atta comes to the rescue and Flik thinks up a plan, he gets cornered by Hopper and right when he's about to choke him to death, a bird appears and Hopper gets fed to its babies, the film then ends with the ants saying goodbye to the circus bugs, Atta becoming queen, and Flik is declared being a true hero. But unfortunately what causes the film to go downhill really causes it to go downhill, the adviser ants, Princess Atta, and the Queen are so unbelievably obnoxious, always talking down to Flik and Dot going on about how they'll never achieve anything and this isn't just occasional insults, it happens constantly throughout most of the film, they get on my nerves to the point where it's unwatchable, they even tried to get rid of Flik by saying they'll agree to let him look for warriors when really they're just trying to get rid of him, which is why my least favorite scene is when it's revealed that the circus bugs aren't warriors, therefore the colony has to call Flik a disgrace and kick him out because they apparently would rather be slaves than listen to someone who's just misunderstood, what were they thinking? So this film is nowhere near terrible, as mentioned before the fourth act starting from when the last leaf falls is spectacular, but I just feel that the ants having to be so mean-spirited and cruel towards Flik was just way too much for me.