Hilarious, fun, a rip roaring good time

Rating: 9/10 (4 July 2006)

It seems like Dreamworks just simply can't make a bad picture. They have revolutionized animation and made them absolute gold in the pocket. Fortunately they truly do make great pictures!! Over The Hedge is a unique, fun, well voiced picture that has just right the morals for young kids, a hilarious script for adults and children and breathtaking animation. All this is told in basically ONE location. The film never leaves the backyard and over the hedge in one small neighborhood. That's pretty impressive to be able to tell a great story without ever changing locations. The script is literally laugh out loud, and they take plenty of liberties with the characters because it's animation and it doesn't have to be even remotely realistic. And that makes it even more fun!! They really know how to make a picture fun for everyone!! I went to see this with my girlfriend and no kids and we loved it!!
This cast is just drop dead amazing. Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte, Thomas Haden Church, Allison Janney, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, and Avril Lavigne. What an incredible job bringing together such a variety of Hollywood stars and they all mesh together perfectly. They also fit their characters 100%. Bruce Willis is terrific (a throwback to his days voicing Mikey in Look Who's Talking) as R.J., a rather self serving raccoon with his own welfare in mind. Willis has a distinct style to his comedy and he brings that out with his voice. Garry Shandling is also terrific as determined leader of the family Verne. Wanda Sykes is hilarious and well voiced as the strong willed Skunk Stella. Thomas Haden Church is really well done as the mean spirited exterminator Dwayne, called in to rid the up scale human neighborhood of the sudden critter infestation.
As I said before on the great things about this film is it's story, script and just it's complete set up in general. A group of different animals (Possums, Porcupines, a skunk, a turtle, a chipmunk) all wake up from hibernation to discover that their forest has been cut down in order to make way for a new up scale sub division and now right outside their log where they live separating them from the humans is a HEDGE!! One of the greatest moments in the film is when they're trying to discover what this "hedge" actually is. The film is so sweet, nicely made, funny, action packed!! There are some genuine edge of your seat moments and every character is adorable and done in beautifully rendered CGI animation. The last animated film I saw was Chicken Little which I also really enjoyed and I'm scored Over The Hedge the same as Chicken Little but Over The Hedge was even better. You've got to see this one!! 9/10