Mediocrity Incarnate

Rating: 5/10 (16 July 2008)

I've never been a fan of Dreamworks, and Over the Hedge only reconfirms my bias towards the company. Dreamworks has been making the same mistakes with every film since Shrek 2 and frankly, it's getting old. One of these mistakes is that their characters seem like nothing more than flat vessels-for-cheap-jokes with Hollywood voices tacked on. There just isn't in personality in these characters, no soul within their empty gazes. It's hard to get into a film when the characters aren't believable. I find it hard to care about something cardboard. The energetic and spastic Hammy is the exception here, of course. As for the story, it's something hard to pin down. I don't know if it's just me, but this movie's plot reminds me a lot of the Lion King. Anyway, it seems like the plot should work really well, but... it doesn't. Perhaps it's because the setting is too familiar, perhaps it's because the plot is clumsy and broken, perhaps it's because the main character (whom you're supposed to care about) is made out to look like a douchebag... Any of those reasons will suffice. Whatever the reason, I left Over the Hedge feeling dissatisfied and thinking... "what the hell was that?" Dreamworks needs to lay off the celebrity wankage and give time to what really matters... the story.