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The character designs
and concepts in A Bug’s Life fused with the interesting twist
on Aesop’s fable The Ant and the Grasshopper and Kurosawa’s
masterpiece Seven Samurai (along with pieces of The Magnificent
Seven) makes for an exciting journey into the misunderstood lives
of ants and circus bugs. It’s an epic approach, with humor
and adventure, but the target audience is decidedly more juvenile
than Pixar’s other features. The animation is keen, even though
it has been bested greatly by the latest CG films, and the voice
cast is entertainingly recognizable. At the heart of it all, however,
is a tone of childish fancy and immature perils, preventing A Bug’s
Life from having the depth and emotional reach that has since become
the very fibers of a Pixar motion picture.
Flik (Dave Foley) is a clumsy but inventive ant who spends his
time building devices to make his life easier, such as a wheat
harvesting contraption that inevitably causes destruction. The
other ants in his colony, led by the newly appointed Princess
Atta (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), don’t appreciate Flik’s
nonconformity and look for any chance to keep him out of the way.
(Ironically they use a tiny shell as a warning horn – an
invention that doesn’t support their ideas of doing things
the old-fashioned way). But all is not well on their isolated
island home; the ants hurriedly gather food for an angry swarm
of grasshoppers who they continue to feed year after year out
of fear. The gang of grasshoppers is led by Hopper (Kevin Spacey),
who knows that his stranglehold over the ants is based on keeping
his servants in line and not the meager victuals. |
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When Flik accidentally
ruins the nest’s offering to the grasshoppers, he’s
sent away on a mission to the city to recruit bigger warrior bugs
to fight off Hopper and his men. No one actually thinks he’ll
succeed, except little Princess Dot (Hayden Panettiere), who admires
his heroism. In a classic case of mistaken identity, Flik stumbles
upon a group of flea circus performers, and brings the clown bugs
back to his home to defend against the raging grasshoppers.
It’s fascinating to watch older computer animated films and witness the evolution of realism. The models are all cartoon-like caricatures, but the motion is stiffer, the colors are less natural, the textures are simpler, and the details are generally lacking. On a less technical note, A Bug’s Life does creatively poke fun at the activities and traits of insects that audiences are familiar with for intelligent bouts of visual humor. Many of the supporting roles are typical comic relief or generic sidekick bits, but the villain is more menacing and deservedly receives a more violent quietus. Perhaps the wittiest irony is the idea that it’s a “bug eat bug world” out there – except that in real life ants eat grasshoppers, and that “singing insects” are typically thought to be docile, playful and friendly. - Mike Massie
Crawling with imaginative characters, hilarious laughs and colorful animation sure to “delight everyone – young, old or six-legged” (People Magazine), A Bug’s Life received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Original Score. Highlighted by the star-powered voice cast including Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hayden Panettiere, Phyllis Diller, Denis Leary, Bonnie Hunt, Brad Garrett, David Hyde Pierce, John Ratzenberger, Dave Foley, Christina Milian and Ashley Tisdale, A Bug’s Life is bigger-than-life fun families will want to enjoy again and again in Blu-ray Hi-Def!
DISC 1- Blu-ray
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This is my favorite Pixar film!!!!!!