Over The Hedge is another of the slew of computer animated movies to have come out recently. In it we have a family headed by the tortoise Verne (Garry Shandling) who only have 274 (or something like that) days to gather enough food to see them through the winter now that they’ve come out of hibernation. Yes, their life is that exciting – but at least they have each other. The “family” comprises the aforementioned tortoise, a female skunk, a hyperactive squirrel, a family of hedgehogs, and two possums. The possum daughter (Avril Lavigne in annoying teenager mode) thinks her dad (wonderfully voiced by William Shatner) is very old-fashioned, what with playing dead every time he hears a twig break, but of course in the end learns that the old ways can indeed be the best. Their existence is about to be seriously disturbed, however, when they find out that their normal foraging ground has now been overrun with humans – and is on the other side of hedge that seemingly never ends…
Their existence is disturbed even more when a racoon called RJ (Bruce Willis) turns up. He is about to teach them about the wonderful world of scavenging off the most wasteful creature on earth, and the joys that can bring – sugar / caffeine rush and digital TV, for instance. Verne’s tail begins twitching, as it always does when there’s trouble around. But without the streetwise RJ, how will the family survive?
RJ, of course, has his own agenda, but his loner instincts become severely challenged when he is accepted into the family. Then, of course, there is the small business of the humans, who call in their ultimate weapon - The Verminator.
Being a Dreamworks animation, Over The Hedge does of course look fantastic. There were some extremely eye-catching effects and the attention to detail was superb, such as fireflies suddenly flying over characters’ heads and lighting up in time with them having an idea. There were lots of other little touches like that which helped to make this one of the most visually appealing animations of all time. The music was okay but nothing special. The voice acting was mostly great, with Shatner absolutely perfect in his role and Willis / Shandling holding up their end of the deal well.
Where the film did fall down slightly was the storyline – it’s nice enough and has a good moral message, but really it was just too simple to sustain the whole film. The predictability was a little disappointing, and the jokes relied heavily on slightly rude humour and pop culture references. Still it was an enjoyable movie, had quite a few laughed in it, looked spectacular and had a nice feel-good ending. I just didn’t feel it stood out as being better than or equal to other recent animations such as The Wild or Ice Age 2. There were also some characters that I really thought they could have done more with, particularly Tiger, the guard cat. He was mildly funny but could have been hilarious.
At the end of the day Over The Hedge is a nice enough movie and certainly enjoyable, but not as good as some others. Whether you’d want to watch it would pretty much entirely depend on whether you like animated movies to begin with.
Other Information
Rating: PG for some rude humor and mild comic action.
Runtime::83 min
Quotes
RJ: That is an S.U.V. humans ride in then because they are slowly losing their ability to walk.
Lew the Porcupine: Wow it's huge!
Hammy the Squirrel: How many people fit in there?
RJ: Normally, about one.
Dwayne (“The Verminator”): [after shooting the head off a plastic flamingo] Arrrgh! Not again! Those things are so lifelike! Curse you, plastic moldsmen.
Stella (The skunk – voiced by Wanda Sykes): You mean you don't mind the smell?
Tiger: This face was bred for Beauty. I cannot smell a thing.
In DreamWorks smash-hit comedy, these hungry critters go over the hedge to take a bite out of Suburbia. Plus, check out the All-New Mini-Movie, Hammy ...More at Buy.com
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