MPAA Rated – G
It’s 1:36 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right
| A Bug’s Life Movie Stats & Links |
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| Starring: | Lots of celebrity voices. |
| MPAA Rated: | G |
| Released By: | Walt Disney Pictures |
| Kiddie Movie: | You betcha. |
| Date Movie: | She might like it better than you. |
| Gratuitous Sex: | Nope. |
| Gratuitous Violence: | Nope, but the grasshoppers are kinda scary. |
| Action: | Some cool bug chasing scenes. |
| Laughs: | More for the kids than adults. |
| Memorable Scene: | The out-takes, and the bug rescue scene with the bird. |
| Memorable Quote: | None. |
| Directed By: | John Lasseter |
| Produced By: | Darla K. Anderson, Kevin Reher |
A quote I hear as I’m leaving “A Bug’s Life:” “The out-takes were the best part of the movie.” Sadly, I have to agree.
Now don’t get me wrong, “A Bug’s Life” is a good movie, but it just doesn’t live up to the vaulted expectations that “Toy Story” developed as a predecessor. The story goes sort of like this: You’ve got an ant colony. Each year they get visited by grasshoppers who expect the ants to pick their food, offer it up on the temple made of a leaf and some rocks, and the grasshoppers will leave them alone. This year the crop picking is going fine, until accident-prone Flik, kind of a nutty-professor ant, accidentally knocks over the pile of seeds, losing them all to the river below. Well, the grasshoppers are pissed when their food isn’t there, so they give the ants another chance to round up some food before the rainy season comes. The ants have a dilemma, pick the food for themselves as they normally would and brave the wrath of the grasshoppers, or pick the food for the grasshoppers and leave none for themselves.
Well, the ants opt to pick the food for the grasshoppers, but Flik thinks that they can scare the grasshoppers away with a little help from bigger bugs. So, Princess Anna lets Flik go to the “city” to round up some warrior bugs, and Flik, through a bunch of miscommunications and misunderstandings, rounds up circus bugs instead. Well, they aren’t warrior bugs, but do offer some help, and the ending, well, the ending works itself out.
It’s a nice story, kind of cute, but here was my problem – I just didn’t find myself connecting with Flik. Sure he was kind of a goof, sure his character came off as sort of lovable, but maybe it was just that he looked like all of the other ants that made me not separate him from the bunch. The circus ants, well, I could relate to each of their personalities because they were all different bugs – a dung beetle, a praying mantis, a stick bug, a black widow spider, a ladybug, and others, and they each had a personality that you could imaging that bug to have, but Flik was an ant, like all of the rest of the ants, and although with a personality, he looked the same. I don’t know, maybe it was just me, but I didn’t root for Flik.
Is “A Bug’s Life” for the kids? Sure, although they might get a little scared by the grasshoppers, but it’s cute and the animation and colors might be enough to keep the kids interested. As an adult, the movie had its chuckles, but other than being amused by the circus bugs I just wasn’t caring if the ants survived the upcoming onslaught of the grasshoppers.
But why the quote at the beginning of this review? Well, in a funny maneuver, the credits incorporated “out-takes” of the “filming” of the movie. They showed bugs messing up their lines, running into the “camera,” and one of the bugs peeing on the queen ant. They were, for me, the best part of the movie, so don’t get up and run out of the theater when “The End” hits the screen.
The rating for “A Bug’s Life?” Well, for an adult to see I give it 1 ½ stars. From the laughs of some of the kids around me I give it 3 ½ stars for the kids. Let’s average them together and give “A Bug’s Life” 2 ½ stars out of 5.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!