” a bug’s life ” may not be ” toy story , ” but it’s more close than ” antz ” was .
i really liked ” antz , ” basically because , yes , it is clever and witty and intelligent ( and it has the temerity to take a chance and put woody allen in the lead , perhaps the year’s most inspired casting ) , but there was , in fact , something missing from it , and i’m the first to admit that .
maybe it’s that it never totally lets go and takes off into real innocent fun – it’s too obsessed with its orwellian message to become totally engaging , and if it weren’t for woody allen , it would have been just a really clever good-not-great flick .
” a bug’s life ” has a similar premise , and it also has disney to insure that it’s g-rated and not totally over kids’ heads like ” antz ” was ( not a bad thing , believe me ) , but what it also has is a tone that’s completely innocent even when it’s also remaining perpetually clever .
” antz ” is still the more witty film , and i love it for it , and ” a bug’s life ” is more for general consumption , but it’s also more entertaining .
it broadens its horizons , and when it really moves from the ant colony , it really shows us a whole new world we’ve never seen before , and it’s take on the evolution of bugs is a lot better than the one in ” antz . ”
it’s also light and clever .
the visuals are , instead of earth tones , bright worldly colors , and still gives the amazing visual technology of ” antz ” at least a worthy contender .
the characters are also nicely realized – though watered-down for broad consumption , they still carry more wit than the contemporary disney animated films .
the lead character , flik ( voiced by dave foley ) , is nothing more than a slightly-less neurotic z from ” antz , ” but foley makes him nearly as engaging as allen made z . instead of gene hackman playing the villain , we get the much more menacing kevin spacey as the lead grasshopper , the nicely-titled hopper .
and for the romantic lead , we don’t get spacey sharon stone , but intelligent and hard-to-get julia-louis dreyfuss , who doesn’t even come around until the very final frames .
not that the plot’s really any better than the one in ” antz ” – it’s basically yet another redux of ” the seven samurai , ” with an ant colony under the control of giant grasshoppers forcing them to produce a product for them or else .
when flik , a bone fide inventor , creates a time-conserving apparatus that accidentally destroys the season’s donation , he puts them all in risk , and is sent away so that he won’t screw anything up with the pretense that he is searching for help to fight the grasshoppers .
he runs into a group of ” warrirors ” who are , unbeknownst to him , a group of carnival bugs , and they agree to help under similar false pretenses .
these bugs are an equally wonderful assortment to anything in ” toy story ” : foppish walking stick slim ( david hyde-pierce ) , german caterpillar heimlich ( joe ranft ) , quick-tempered and insecure male ladybug francis ( denis leary ) , pretentious praying mantis manny ( jonathan harris ) , his assistant butterfly hypsy ( madeliene kahn ) , spider rosie ( bonnie hunt ) , and two fleas , tuck and roll ( michael mcshane ) , who speak in undiscernable jibberish .
the writers lightly touch on each bug’s place in bug society and the malleability thereof while making a wisecracks at everything they can , and blowing the audience away with wild visual treats .
grasshoppers jumping in unison seems like a menacing earthquake .
a small bird becomes an ominous mortal threat , whose usual mild-mannered squeal is a scream of death .
the bug city is a modern-day metropolis , complete with fireflies temping as traffic lights and a fly sitting on the curb , holding out a cup , with a sign lying next to him that says ” kid tore off wings . ”
and a rainstorm is like a giant flood , with each drop acting like a small bomb dropped at millions of miles per hour .
around this , the pixar animators stage several large set pieces , like a resuce mission halfway through that is as wild and entertaining as anything this year , and a wonderfully exciting action piece at the end , a chase scene at night through the labyrinthine branches of a small thicket .
meanwhile , each character gets the spotlight to be completely idisyncratic and interesting , something ” antz ” couldn’t do , and by the end , over the end credits , ” a bug’s life ” pulls it’s final punch , out clever-ing ” antz ” with a series of incessantly hilarious faux-bloopers that come just at the right time , when those who leave immeadiately after the final frame of a film have left , and you can brag that you were one of the elite who stayed and got the full money’s worth of entertainment .
still , it’s no ” toy story . ”
that film , maybe above any animated film i’ve ever seen , encompassed almost true perfection in story , character , and wit .
it proved that it didn’t need to brag about it’s cutting edge technology to really soar ( it’s the least visually striking of the three computer animated films thus far , but is still the most satisfying ) , and created a perfect world of idiosyncratic delights and innocent fun .
yet ” a bug’s life , ” as well as ” antz , ” are still amazing films , and prove without doubt , that if you’re gonna make a computer animated film , send it to the guys who created these three flicks , evne if they’re not working under the same roof .