The Ant Bully

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-"

I will say I enjoyed The Ant Bully on the whole. Of course the concept has been done to death, and the story is predictable at times. The script on the whole is nice, maybe not as smart or as sassy as Antz and Bug's Life and certainly not as humorous. But this is an example of an animated film that looks very handsome with detailed backgrounds, vibrant colouring and convincing enough character movements. The soundtrack is absolutely lovely. I always look out for this element in every film I review, and I was most impressed with the soundtrack overall. The voice acting is another saving grace, Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage and Paul Giamatti among others do a stellar job voicing engaging enough characters. The Ant Bully also has a great moral about bullying, a topic I feel most strongly about. Sometimes there is a danger of moralising in films being too preachy, but the writers somehow managed to avoid that, and that was most commendable. All in all, this is a above decent animated film, that never tries to be the best movie ever made. It tries to do something original about a over familiar concept, and while not entirely successful, it is a jolly good attempt. Remember you could have been watching Doogal. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Elements from several recent computer-generated pictures are truly evident in this animated feature that focuses on a young boy who takes his frustrations out on defenseless ants after being bullied himself by his peers. After he magically gets turned to the size of an ant, the youngster learns how the other half lives and survives. Under-rated picture that has good messages for the kiddies and will keep them occupied on rainy afternoons. A bit slow-moving and old hat for hardened adults, but still more upside nonetheless. Julia Roberts and Nicolas Cage are the two biggest names in a strong cast that lends their voices to their cartoonish alter egos. 4 stars out of 5.

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.

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.