Who thought animating films for adults was a good idea?

Rating: 5/10 (26 November 1998)

_Antz_ is the latest in a misbegotten trend of trying to graft adult content onto animated family films. Blame _The Lion King_ (and guiding hand for both films, Jeffrey Katzenberg) for doing it well and reaping the financial rewards, but successors reaching for the same brass ring (both within Disney -- _Hunchback_, e.g. -- and without) go too far. Not only is the language in _Antz_ a tad inappropriate (do you really want to explain "erotic fantasy" to your five-year-old?), the use of Woody Allen as the voice of the hero along with battle and flood imagery reminiscent of other DreamWorks films like _Saving Private Ryan_ and _Deep Impact_ only reinforces the sense that _Antz_ is aspiring to be something perverse: a gritty, neurotic, philosophical disaster movie for the whole family.
But the worst offense of all is that the film is boring. The script is as trite as they come, moving as it does from one movie cliche to the next without stopping for real character development. The dialogue is surprisingly witless and plodding, with every joke telegraphed well in advance. The songs -- admittedly a frequent bane of Disney films as well -- are of even less interest here as they are "standards" tossed in for no apparent reason. And the film is visually dull as well -- all dark and dingy in the ant colony where most of the action takes place, but hardly more beautiful in the great outdoors.
_Antz_ may represent another leap forward in the art of computer animation, but I found the short trailer I saw for _A Bug's Life_ to contain much more life, color, whimsy and invention than the entirety of this disappointing affair.