Antz (1998)
I wish we'd get more animated films like Antz. It’s got a distinct look, the voice actors are perfectly cast, the story has many smart and unconventional developments throughout. It's may not appeal to small children but it isn’t only for adults either.
Zee (voiced by Woody Allen) is an ant with a lot of questions. Why does he have to dig dirt all day? Why does he have to slave for the good of the colony? Isn’t there more to life? When he impersonates a soldier ant and winds up stranded outside the colony with Princess Bala (voiced by Sharon Stone), they go on the search for "Insectopia", the fabled land of food and plenty.
This picture is not like other children’s films where ants are just little people who drive little cars on their way to work while exchanging puns about picnics and bugs. It feels as though writers Paul and Chris Weitz and Todd Alcott wrote down everything that could happen if your protagonist was a neurotic, pessimistic ant and then took the time to figure out where this character would go from there. Queens, ants' ability to lift much more than their weight, picnics, going to war with other insects, the different “castes”, their size, and the fact that there are millions of them living together all play a part in this story.
The choices of music, the humor, the story's tone give Antz an identity. Sure, there are big names in the voice cast – Sylvester Stallone, Gene Hackman, Sharon Stone, Jennifer Lopez, etc. - but these are not just names to put at the top of the movie poster. Stallone is perfect as a soldier ant, he just has that kind of voice of a simple-minded drone whose sole objective in life is to kill and then return home without thinking about what he just did. Gene Hackman as a general? He was born to play the part. It brings me back to Disney's Aladdin and its inspired casting of Robin Williams as the genie. While Woody Allen is once again playing the same character he always does, it's what he's best at. No one else would fit his role as well.
This is a great-looking picture that uses its medium well. The people in 1998 knew what limitations they had and kept them in mind. You won’t see a single human face in this film, which makes sense in this world of insects.
It’s a shame this picture was released so closely to A Bug’s Life and was all but squashed at the box office. As audiences members, the only thing we need to care about is how good the movie is. Now that Antz is on home video, it’s your chance to see this underrated, slightly more grown-up animated feature. It’s consistently funny and sharp. (On DVD, November 18, 2016)
