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| A more memorable way to spend 95 minutes? |
The artists at Pixar Animation Studios really had their work cut out for them following the splash made by their first full-length movie, Toy Story. Actually, splash may not a big enough word to describe the tremendous impact the instant-classic had on the film industry … maybe a “huge kerploosh?” Having been first thought up in a 1994 lunch meeting between Pixar founders John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Doctor and Joe Ranft (the same discussion which brought about plans for Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo,) their next film would shift focus from living plastic toys to another simple-to-render subject, the world of insects. Originally inspired by the fable of “The Grasshopper and the Ants” (until Stanton and Ranft realized that an actual grasshopper would simply take the food he wants,) A Bug’s Life tells the story of an independently-minded ant named Flik (voiced by The Kids in the Hall’s Dave Foley,) who unwittingly hires a troupe of “circus bugs” to help protect his hive from a group of marauding grasshoppers, led by the villainous Hopper (a sinister Kevin Spacey.)
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| "Deeply inappropriate drunken behavior" |
A quick note: I realize that this film includes not one, but two powerful Hollywood players whose reprehensible behaviour has recently come to light (Lasseter and Spacey.) Readers familiar with some of my other articles (such as The Devil and Max Devlin with Bill Cosby) would probably expect me to work this into my review; but to be honest I’m pooped from my ramblings on race issues in last week’s Dumbo article. Since I’m trying to keep this review brief, if it’s all the same I’m going to lay off the heavy topics this time around.
Still with me? Thanks.
Expanding the scope from Toy Story, A Bug’s Life tells a story about little creatures on a large scale. Spaces like burrows under trees or grassy knolls become huge, sweeping vistas that stretch out for (simulated) miles. The natural world, when seen through the eyes of our tiny heroes, becomes a very dangerous place, where even a gentle spring rain can bring fear and destruction. Perhaps taking a cue from Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, the bug’s world is (literally) littered with gigantic items from the human world - creating a number of clever visual gags (such as P.T. Flea’s (John Ratzenberger) circus traveling around in a “Circus Animal” cracker box.) The “bug city,” a miniature metropolis created from garbage underneath a mobile home, is a cornucopia of gags piled one atop the other.
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| Ah, Bugopolis ... the 'Big Turd' |
The cast is made up almost entirely of familiar voices, containing perhaps more celebrity voices than any other Pixar production before or since (‘B’ and ‘C’-list celebrities maybe, but well-known nonetheless.) Besides Foley as the heroic Flik, we have Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus, comedienne Phyllis Diller, actress Edie McClurg (forever the “You’re fucked” lady from Planes, Trains and Automobiles,) a pre-Heroes Hayden Panettiere and Bullwhip Griffin himself, Roddy McDowall, leading the ant colony; the aforementioned Kevin Spacey and Richard Kind (in the first of his many Pixar roles) as the lead grasshoppers; plus Denis Leary, Frasier’s David Hyde Pierce, Lost In Space’s Dr. Smith, Jonathan Harris, Blazing Saddles’ Madeline Kahn, popular character actress Bonnie Hunt and Everybody Loves Raymond’s Brad Garrett making up the ragtag band of circus bugs. Whew! Despite the relative “star power” of this cast (who all put in fine performances, by the way,) none of the characters really make as lasting an impression as the cast of Toy Story managed three years prior. The sole exception, however, turns out to be Pixar’s story supervisor Joe Ranft, who steals the show as the German-accented voice of Heimlich the caterpillar (doing his best Sergeant Schultz impression.) Ranft’s memorably silly character would go on to inspire one of the Disney’s most bizarrely lame theme park attractions, which we’ll look at in a future “Theme Park Rundown” entry (should I ever get around to writing it.)
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| I know nuzzink! |
Like everything Pixar did until they dared to slap faces onto motor vehicles, A Bug’s Life was the darling of the critical community, garnering near-universal acclaim - though much tempered when compared, again, to the reception granted their first film. Besides being the follow-up to Toy Story, A Bug’s Life likely got an extra publicity boost thanks to the release of Dreamworks’ first animated release, the similarly bug-themed Antz. Produced by Disney refugee Jeffrey Katzenberg, Antz was rumored to have been rushed through production in order to beat Pixar’s pending release date (interestingly, Antz was moved ahead of Dreamworks Animation’s originally-planned first feature, The Prince of Egypt.) An ugly and very public feud was stirred up between Katzenberg and Pixar, with John Lasseter and Pixar founder Steve Jobs insisting that Katzenberg had stolen their story from his time as Walt Disney Pictures’ creative chairman. Katzenberg naturally denied this, claiming that the idea for Dreamworks’ film originated from a proposed film called Army Ants, which had been pitched to Disney’s animation studio in 1988. Deepening divisions between all parties involved, in the end both films did well critically and financially, since Dreamworks’ film was aimed at a somewhat older audience than Pixar’s family-friendly feature.
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| Oh the pain... |
When all’s said and done, A Bug’s Life is only okay. A pleasantly entertaining film that keeps your interest for the entirety of it’s runtime, once the credits (set to the tune of Randy Newman’s sprightly “Time of Your Life,” which - like all the music in this film - sounds like it was left over from the Toy Story recording sessions) stop rolling, the whole thing is quickly forgotten. Bereft of memorable characters and containing a familiar, slight storyline that still manages to take longer than it should to play out, A Bug’s Life feels like a placeholder - a scant snack to tide audiences over until they could be given another helping of the gang from Andy's room.
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| Na-na na-na na-na na-na na-na na-na - Bird Man! |
The unfortunate truth is that no matter how well made Pixar’s follow-up to Toy Story turned out, there was no way it was going to have the same meteoric impact as it’s predecessor. At this point, Pixar wasn’t the household name it would become, either: the success of Toy Story was viewed by the general public mostly as a triumph for Disney (a distinction CEO Michael Eisner was in no hurry to dispel, naturally,) and it would take another few hits before people started taking notice of the Emeryville, California-based animation studio that was generating such a run of high-quality entertainment.
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| I'm like a bird, I wanna fly away... |
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