Hello, Spongey here.
Welcome back to Pixar-athon!
Do you have you one movie, that you like the first time, but soon, you grow to really love it?
No? Well I do.
This, is A Bugs Life
First, the premise.
The movie begins in a peaceful ant colony, which yearly is terrorized by a biker gang-esque group of grasshoppers and the ants are forced to give them an offering of food. One year, an ant named Flik (Dave Foley) accidentally knocks the offering into the nearby creek. Hopper (Kevin Spacy) forces the ants to re-gather double the usual amount of food, giving them until the end of autumn. The ants are worried, particularly because they won't have enough food for themselves over the winter if they gather enough for the grasshoppers, so Flik volunteers to redeem himself by recruiting "tough bugs" to fight Hopper and his gang. Flik travels to "the city" where he meets a bunch of recently-fired circus bugs. After seeing them perform one of their acts, Flik mistakes them for warriors, and takes them back to the colony. The circus bugs are initially shocked when they find out why they're there, but eventually begin to love living in the colony, and agree to help Flik come up with a plan to defeat the grasshoppers.
Unlike most pixar films, I haven’t seen this that many times. I’ve seen it by itself a total of 3 times. Two of which were in 2011. Yeah, it took me awhile to get to this one. I just forgot about it until ABC Family reminded me, and then I saw it on youtube. Then I got the DVD for this review.
When I first saw it , I liked it, but at the time I let the fact that the use the whole “lier reveled” cliché bring me down. Then I watched again and really loved it for what it was. The cliché was used because it was good for the story they were doing, not because they were lazy.
It seems that this movie is one of pixars’ more underrated works. (It was the most underrated until You know what…). Even pixar isn’t too fond of this film. They admitted that they made the mistake of trying to make it better than Toy Story instead of trying to make a good movie on it’s own.
I think this movie does need more attention, because of several things, which I will get to later.
First, we have the characters. Flick at first seems like he’s the cliché “guy who fucks up a lot but has a heart of gold”. And maybe he is, but he’s just so damn likable! That is partly due to his voice actor Dave Foley (I know him now as Chris from Dan Vs…). He’s really funny and makes flick really interesting. Flick’s facial expressions could make several 4chan boards happy.
The other side characters that are not villains or circus bugs are cool. Don’t have much to say about them. Only that Dot is blueish in the movie but on the DVD cover she’s pink. ERROR
The circus bugs are awesome . There’s tuck and roll (who speak…foreign-ese), the skinny Slim (David Hyde Pierce), Hemlich (pixar regular Joe Ranft) who is so german it hurts, and there’s others but my fave is Francis (Dennis Leary) who is ladybuyg…that is a man. He’s like the squidward of ladybugs. He’s just really funny.
The leader of the bugs is PT Flea, who is John Ratzenburger’s character. John has cited PT as his fave. I can see why. He’s really funny, and he reminds of mr krabs if he ran a circus…and was a flea…voiced by john ratzenburger.
That’s all for the main characters I can actually say something about …oh yea there’s princess atta, pixar’s first princess (2nd will be later this year…_). I liked her romance with flick, as it was subtle and it helped move the story further.
The main thing that I like about the movie is how epic it is. The film is often called an epic of miniature proportions, and I can see why. It’s about the ants, but the story is really interesting, and the stakes are high. You really feel for the characters and want them to stop the grasshoppers.
But you know what best part of the entire film is?
THE VILLAIN!
Seriously, hopper is awesome! This is all due to Kevin spacey. If you need a crazy ass villain, you call kevin spacey, man. He really brings hopper to life. Hopper is so insane, and really scary. You really feel his power, and his voice really shows. You can see why these ants fear so much.
Hopper is just plain awesome.
I can’t stress enough how epic this film is., The best part is the entire 2nd half. The climax is simply amazing. Flick stands up to hopper, and there’s a really cool fight scene. Mere words can’t describe it. You simply must watch it for yourself.
Also, the animation is very nice to look at. The character animation is quite detailed, and when there’s a close up of something it looks quite real. It adds to the movie a lot
Now, I do think this is the pixar film I love the least amount. As good as it is, it’s not quite as amazing as some their other productions. But I do prefer it over the other pixar film people overlook…but that’s for later..
Oh, and easter eggs? A113 is on a box when flick enters the city. And right before that the pizza planet truck is right next to a trailer.
So uh…what else is there to talk about?
Oh, about the voice actors….i heard a rumor one of the bug scouts was one the very early roles of…Ashley Tisdale.
I have no idea how true that is. But if it is, this movie is now 20 percent cooler.
So yeah, that’s actually all I can say about this movie.
A Bugs Life may be a slightly weaker pixar entry, but it’s still fun epic, and awesome.
I give it an A-
This is spongy saying, pixarathon shall continue!
Actually Dot IS pink.
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