Antz is a great kids movie for grown-ups.

Rating: 10/10 (7 October 1998)

The refreshing thing about Dreamworks SKG is that they don't appear to care very much about how marketable their films are. Heck, the guys are millionaires, right? This summer, for example, they made an action movie with believable characters and not much action (Deep Impact, which compared to Armageddon was practically a Merchant Ivory film). And now with Antz they turn the world of children's animation on its ear. This is stuff that Disney would never dare: No songs (or catchy broadway soundtrack), no bright colors, no hip sidekicks, No over-the-top villain. Antz is edgy, and much of the humor adult. The PG rating isn't fooling around, you'll find three damns, a 'hell,' and a 'bitching' in here, as well as lines like "I'm sorry, but drinking from the anus of another creature isn't my cup of tea." And yet Antz succeeds as a children's movie in spite, or perhaps because of its willingness to jettison the pop-culture junk that permeated Disney's Hercules, as well as the preachiness that ruined Pocahontas. The paint-by-numbers plotting of recent animated movies is all but gone, as well -- the villain's master plan isn't fully fleshed out until the end of the film, instead of telegraphed in the first five minutes. Antz is something of an oddity as a children's movie because it feels so completely *new*, every idea fresh, every plot twist unexpected. When was the last time you watched a kid's movie and weren't sure how it was going to end? Of course, it doesn't hurt that Antz looks GREAT. The characters look real, not merely computer generated, and the Ant's eye view of the world is entrancing and nearly flawless (occasionally, the backgrounds look too static, but that's a minor quibble). All in all, Antz is a fine movie. Very young children should not be taken to see it, however; they will miss the humor, might be bored by some of the chattier scenes, and will most certainly be frightened by a termite/ant battle scene early on (heck, it frightened ME. Those termites were nasty). But anyone over the age of ten will be entranced by Antz' vision. This is a film to see more than once, simply to appreciate the wit lurking behind the scenes (For example, in the ant/termite battle, every soldier on either side is killed except one ant. The ants have a victory parade, and one sign reads "One - nothing. We win." If that's not skewering satire, tell me what is). Pixar's "A Bug's Life" will most certainly be more lively and bright than Antz, and more kid-friendly. But it will also be safer, more predictable, and more clearly aimed at the bottom line (that is, selling toys and soundtracks). Antz is a breath of fresh air in the genre, and will be fun for children and adults alike.