Review of “Ant Bully”
Uninspiring and overly bullying the audience with its own message, this animated film lacks charm, pulling punches on the plot but not on the preaching.
Lucas is a young boy struggling to make sense of being an individual in a tough world. With no friends, a self-absorbed older sister, and parents away on holiday, Lucas is left to his video games, his mad grandmother and the local fat bully. The only way Lucas has to feel powerful is to kill ants. Lucas’ self image is clearly a problem.
The ants don’t quite see it this way. To them he’s “The Destroyer”, a huge and terrifying force bent on the destruction of the colony. Thanks to a magic potion created by ant Wizard Zoc (voice of Nicolas Cage) the ants are able to shrink Lucas to a manageable size, kidnap him and bring him into their world. A stranger in a strange land, Lucas has to learn the ways of the ant in order to save himself, and ultimately – surprise, surprise – the whole colony. To help him become more antlike in mind and spirit he is mentored by Hova (voice of Julia Roberts) and lectured by The Queen (voice of Meryl Streep).
After three years in the making and some big names behind the microphones, this is a sadly disappointing film. The main characters are as dull as insects and struggle to develop beyond the stereotypical. The central story is laboured and overwritten - complete with an overview of ant religious mythology - and fails to set up anything more complex than a series of excuses for fights. All the fun – and there is some - comes from obsessive minor characters and richly detailed cameo scenes: the batty grandmother with false teeth (voice of Lily Tomlin) who is convinced Lucas has been abducted by aliens; the extraverted and slightly lecherous ant scout Fugax (voice of Bruce Campbell); and an hilarious scene inside the stomach of a bloated bull-frog where Lucas waits for certain death with a collection of other droll insects who have also been eaten. But these charming moments are unable to rescue the rest of the film from its preachy moralising on the benefits of working as a team and pulling together as a community. The animation is superb but the cast don’t seem to be able to bring the promise that their star billing suggests. An anticlimax.
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