Fun

Rating: 6/10 (19 July 2006)

Suburbia is lightly satirised in this enjoyable, if flimsy, new animated effort from Dreamworks. After getting caught in the act of stealing  and subsequently destroying  the possessions of a hibernating bear, a raccoon by the name of RJ has one week to retrieve the items, or else he becomes supper. Along his plight he encounters a group of fuzzy, wacky wood-bound friends, all of whom have awoken from hibernation. After conning them into helping him, they venture off "over the hedge" in search of food, encountering dogs, televisions and SUVs ("How many people does it hold? "Usually just one") along the way.
Whilst the movie does take a few clever digs at modern day suburbia, Over The Hedge is never truly biting enough to really hold the adult's attention. The animation, gags and characters are all perfectly fine, whilst never being truly memorable. It is the kind of movie that will keep your kids entertained long enough so they don't bug you about buying them the latest hand-held console or cry over spilt ice cream. There are certainly enough fart gags, and wacky set-pieces to have them laughing all the way through this film, but in the end, you come out feeling fairly ordinary. None of the characters, whether it be the lead in RJ (A somewhat miscast Bruce Willis ) or the supporting cast like Hammy the Squirrel (Steve Carell) are particularly memorable, in the way that Pixar's classics like Toy Story or Finding Nemo boasted wonderful creations, both visually and vocally, like Mr Potato Head or Sheldon the Turtle. In short, it is a movie far too light to really stick in too many kids minds once they have left the cinema.
Yet despite the obvious ephemeralness of it all Over The Hedge doesn't really strive to be narratively wonderful like Toy Story, which deals with the idea of losing one's childhood, or even Spirited Away, dealing with confronting responsibility, whilst being wonderfully dark. With this kind of flimsy set-up and the forgettable nature of the characters, this is an amusing way to spend time with the kids. You would be hard pressed to dislike the film, but you won't love it. Which I think is a shame, given the precedents both Pixar and Dreamworks had set themselves after Shrek and Toy Story.