Lucas, der Ameisenschreck

"Ant Bully" was an OK movie about a boy named Lucas (vocied by Zach Tyler Eisen) who was shrunk to ant size. He was shrunken by a wizard ant named Zoc (Nicolas Cage) as a punishment for Lucas harming the ant colony. The Queen (Meryl Streep) then instructed her colony to train Lucas to become an ant like themselves which was a better solution than eating him.

This movie simply whelmed me (to use a term I heard from a YouTube comedy skit.) I wasn't overwhelmed, nor was I underwhelmed. The animation quality was fair-to-middling as was the plot. "Avatar" would go on to have a similar theme (converting a person into one of them) and I didn't like that movie at all. "Ant Bully" has similar components as other more successful movies, but the different elements didn't come together in that harmonious way that gives you a spectacular movie.

I was able to attend a early screening of this movie by chance. Finding the free pass discarded on the ground at a busy bus stop here in downtown Seattle. Lucky I was!

I really enjoyed this movie, it was a great improvement over the past "Antz" movie it preceded not too long ago. The film was well rounded being able to capture the attention of late twenty somethings to preteens with its clever comedy and playful characters. Kinda like a Honey I shrunk the kids minus the moldy cheese.

There were a few jokes aimed @ an older audience but this helped keep more mature viewers feeling they had spent their 9 bucks on a delightful film.

Sometimes animated movies can surprise you. And this was one of those movies. While it did not wow me, it did have a nice storyline and good voicing talent and that was good enough.

Cage and Roberts play two ants. The thought of those two as ants at first seemed funny. But since they made them human, everything turned out alright. Enter actual conflict with other insects and it makes for a descent film.

The concept, however, has been used before. Animals/insects/aliens being threatened by humans is all too familiar. But it gets over such a thing with making it similar to Western English Europeans dealing Native American Indians to a small extent and that familiarize the audience with the conflict between ant and boy.

Overall, not bad. "B-"

'Ant Bully' is another cute animated film with ants. Many might compare it to Dreamworks's 'Antz' and if I'm told to pick one, then 'Ant Bully' is the better one. Of course the story isn't anything new per se but it moves at a steady pace and the characters are very likable. Besides, there's no harm in enjoying some laugh-out-loud moments. For me it was a good 90 minutes spent laughing as I was watching it with my mom and little sister (who enjoyed it too). Voice talents include names like Nicolas Cage, Lily Tomlin, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Paul Giamatti and many more. All of them do fairly well, though Cage appears to sound a little theatrical urban. The animation is brilliant. I especially like how the aunt 'colonization' was created with vibrant colours and attention to detail. Watch out for some cute shorts of the ants. All in all, this is a cute film to enjoy with the family.

I love CG and am not tired of it yet. To me, the medium of the story is not as important as the quality of the plot, and in The Ant Bully, the story was just too overdone to be satisfying. The graphics and sounds were nice, and it's a shame they were not paired with a more unique storyline.

Pros: The voices were expressive, and there's a different take on ants in this movie than in the previous ones. These follow the laws of nature in some respects but don't in others, so their world may not be as familiar or believable to viewers as those in A Bug's Life or Antz might have been. The CG is great, with nice details where they're needed, and there are different species of wildlife involved. Now if they could just move on to a new subject. No one's done a big CG movie about cockroaches yet...

Cons: The message of the movie is pushed a bit too hard. In many ways, it's exactly the same message as the one in the previous two ant movies. Ant Bully might be pretty interesting for anyone who hasn't already seen A Bug's Life and Antz, but you'll probably still yawn a little and say the magician ant's catch-phrase along with him when it's repeated for the third time.