We certainly seem to have had a lot of computer animated movies this year. The Ant Bully is the latest of the batch and, while it doesn’t exactly break new ground, it’s certainly entertaining and will keep the younger ones particularly very amused.

The Ant Bully is in fact a story about a little boy, Lucas (voiced by Zach Tyler), who is himself the victim of a local bully. (“You can’t do anything about it because I’m big and you’re small!”) Frustrated, Lucas takes it out on those even smaller than he is - a local colony of ants in the back garden. Trouble is, when one of these ants turns out to be a wizard, you shouldn’t have messed with them…

As it turns out, Lucas is about to spend quite a while being about the same size as an ant. Tutoring him will be Hova (Julia Roberts), who seems about the only ant wanting to try to communicate with him rather than destroy him. (After all, the ants know him as “The Destroyer” – or sometimes “Peanut”, which is what they’ve heard his mother call him.) Her boyfriend, Zoc (Nicholas Cage) is the wizard, and very distrustful of Lucas. (But then, with a name like Zoc, wouldn’t you be distrustful of everyone?!?!) Presiding over all things is the Queen Ant (Merryl Streep), who comes up with a solution – let Lucas learn to become an ant. The spirit of teamwork is strong with the ants, but not so much in the human ant. There are many terrible foes to contend with, including the fearsome wasps, but even worse is the Pest Exterminator (Paul Giamatti) – or perhaps the most fearsome of all in some ways is Lucas older sister, Tiffany.

Then of course there’s Mommo, his grandma – who guards herself at night with electric fans because the alien invaders which are surely coming don’t like having their air flow messed with. With the parents on holiday, could grandma really be Lucas’ best hope for a rescue of some kind? IF so, he’s in big trouble…

While the story is nice and gives some positive messages to the kids about the importance of teamwork, belonging, and generally being nice to insects by dropping candy on their heads, don’t make the mistake of comparing this to Antz. There’s no sociopolitical satire here, it’s just a straight old-fashioned Good vs Evil tale, with people (and ants) learning some important lessons along the way. For the type of movie it was, I thought it was very good. The younger members of the audience certainly enjoyed it, and for the young at heart it’s also an enjoyable movie. It’s one of those cases where, for me, the over-simplicity of the story is compensated for by the essential niceness of the whole thing (this has happened to me before when watching the first Ice Age movie.) Yeah, there are certainly plenty of little niggles you could point to if you really wanted to be critical, but overall it comes together well. I’m not saying The Ant Bully is brilliant, but I enjoyed it and pre-teens will absolutely love it.

On the technical side of things, it looks great, the animation is done well and gives you a sense of the insects being cuddly but somehow kinda creepy at the same time, and the voice acting is well up to scratch. There is plenty of humour and action, though a lack of the jokes intended more for adult ears. Still this wasn’t a great problem, and I thoroughly enjoyed this little animated movie. It’s harmless fun for all the family. (Though I’m not someone who feels the need to borrow a child as an excuse to watch a cartoon myself!)

One other thing about the movie that deserves a mention is the musical score, composed by John Debney. It’s so good I may even consider buying the soundtrack one day!!! (I think it’ll only be the second movie soundtrack I’ve bought in my entire life – the only one so far is the incredible score for “Last of the Mohicans”.) It’s actually probably more a case of it perfectly fitting the film than being amazing on its own merits, but it pushes the film overall to a 4 star rating.

I recommend it to parents with young children, and those who’ve never grown up… I mean, never gown out of liking cartoons!


Other Information

Runtime: 88 minutes
Rating: U (not much to upset even smaller children, but one of the kids in the audience we were part of got a bit upset in the scene where Zoc – still gotta admire someone for sticking with that name and trying to be taken seriously – gets angry.
Director: John A. Davis

Based on a book by John Nickle

Final Thought

Much as I love most of these computer animated movies, a question keeps popping into my head…

Are we ever going to see a traditional animated movie ever again?

Thanks for reading,


CaptainD


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Other Animated Movies in 2006

Cars
The Wild
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
Over The Hedge
Monster Huose


See Also

Top Ten Animated Movies

Top Ten Children's Movies
My Top Ten Movies of 2006


Recommended: Yes

Movie Mood: Good for Kids
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.