Just OK

Rating: 4/10 (5 April 2020)

Pixar were really still finding there feet with A Bug's Life. There's nothing really wrong with it. It is just a little dull.
A Bug's Life centres on the life of a bug. Funny that. Name of Flick. Flick's ant colony gets attacked by grasshoppers, seemingly frequently. They exploit them for food. When the ants try to stand up for themselves, they get intimidated and the grasshoppers demand their entire food supply.
However, the grasshoppers don't really feel like a threat. I kept thinking that with the number of ants in the colony, they could easily defeat the band of 20 grasshoppers. And at one point in the movie the grasshoppers literally spell it out, but for some reason it goes nowhere.
The circus characters are supposed to be quirky and funny. I personally don't find "look at how stupid I am" humour to be funny and the circus is filled with this. It felt like irony to me. Really the only character who is funny is the ladybird. The delivery of his lines and his comic timing is almost perfect. However, it saddens me that it wasn't achieved by the other characters. They became reduced to a few character traits and little depth of personality.
And finally, the plot has two clichÃ©s that I really cannot abide in a film. Firstly, the plot hinges on the character overhearing the master plan of the grasshoppers, who just happen to be talking about it out loud, in detail, for no reason. It just didn't make sense. And secondly, the bugs aren't really responsible for their own victory. The bird just happened to be there and just happened to need to feed its baby birds that just conveniently hatched very recently. It didn't feel calculated or planned, which frustrated me.
Overall, I think A Bug's Life is OK. I would be mad about having to watch it again. I mainly think Pixar was still finding its feet and it shows in A Bug's Life.