Another clever, cute and extremely funny animation movie

Rating: 8/10 (11 July 2006)

Do you remember a time when kids movies used to be unbearably kitschy affairs with awful music and story lines that always evolved around a sad princess or animals that were supposed to be cute but were really so annoying you wanted to punch them in their little furry faces? Well, rejoice because those times seem to have gone for good ever since animation movies à la Pixar came along. "Toy Story" and "Shrek" were just the beginning of what turned out to be a whole new genre with room for a thousand funny ideas. Maybe it's the fact that with animated characters and landscapes directors don't have to deal with eccentric actors or with unpredictable changes in weather. Animation movies are so packed with creativity they give us hope that Hollywood really isn't as unimaginative and heartless as it may seem sometimes.
"Over The Hedge" continues this glorious tradition. Whereas most other animation movies included a lot of homages to motion picture classics, "Over The Hedge" relies mostly on its humor (if you discount the fact that the story in itself is a homage to classic heist movies such as "Ocean's 11"). Again makers came up with a whole bunch of lovable little protagonists from RJ the raccoon to Hammy the squirrel (reminiscent of the squirrel from "Ice Age").
The pacing is fast, the animation is perfect and the voice overs are good, too. If there's one thing to criticize it's that "Over The Hedge" is probably too much for kids. The ending gets quite turbulent and the story includes some plotpoints that may be hard to get for children under 12.
Anyway, "Over The Hedge" is a great pleasure to watch and even though it's not quite as great as the big movies of the genre ("Ice Age", "The Incredibles", "Finding Nemo"), it's a more than worthy addition to the lot.