KING OF THE HILL: "ANTZ" VS "A BUG'S LIFE"

"A BUG'S LIFE" WALT DISNEY PICTURES: Director: John Lasseter. Writer: Andrew Stanton, Donald McEnery & Bob Shaw. Cast: Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hayden Panettiere, Phyllis Diller, Richard Kind, David Hyde Pierce, Joe Ranft, Denis Leary, Jonathan Harris, Madeline Kahn, Bonnie Hunt, Michael McShane, John Ratzenberger, Brad Garrett, Roddy McDowall, Edie McClurg, Alex Rocco & David Ossman. USA 1998.

INTRODUCTION: While promoting "Toy Story", Lasseter announced that Pixar's next co-production with Disney would be about insects, so DreamWorks immediately set to work. Skip forward two years and DreamWorks scores a major coup by launching their own computer generated ant film "Antz" two months before Disney's "A Bug's Life" was due to hit the screen.

SYNOPSIS: Both tell the age old tale of an outsider who battles evil foes, saves his city and gets the princes, the tales differ slightly from the classic set up in that the city is an ant colony and the hero is an ant with a rare individuality. Despite this shared set-up the two films differ wildly in the stories that they tell.

Disney's offering takes Aesop's classic fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper and feeds it into Kurosawa's tale of the "Seven Samurai". Stanton et al convert the grasshopper from a lazy good-for nothing who fiddles in the field all summer, before begging the ant for sustenance when the snows come, into Hopper (Spacey) the evil leader of a mercenary band of Grasshoppers who demand tribute, under threat of the levelling of the colony. In turn the Ant is made into Flick (Foley) the industrious if accident prone outsider, who's clumsiness causes the loss of the ants harvest and as a result leads him to head off to the big city to enlist the assistance of warrior bugs to protect the colony, while the Queen (Diller) and her daughter Princess Atta (Louis-Dreyfus) prepare for the return of Hopper, his idiot brother Molt (Kind) and the rest of the marauding Grasshoppers.

Here the plots diverges from Kurosawa's original with Flick finally making it to the city only to accidentally hire a group of circus bugs, recently fired for incompetence by circus impresario P.T. Flea (Ratzenberger), instead of the warriors he sought. This band of misfits including Slim the stick-insect (Hyde Pierce), Heimlich the caterpillar (Ranft), Francis the ladybird (Leary), Manny the praying mantis (Harris), Gypsy the moth (Kahn), Rosie the black widow spider (Hunt), Dim the rhino-like beetle (Garrett) and twin woodlice Tuck & Roll (McShane), realise too late their mistake and so find themselves drawn into the battle to protect Ant Island lead by the ingenious Flick.

Meanwhile in a parallel colony beneath New York's Central Park worker ant Z (Allen) is visiting his analyst (Mazursky). I feel insignificant," he bemoans, "You've made a big breakthrough," replies the therapist." "I have?", "Yes, you ARE insignificant." So begins DreamWorks infinitely more sophisticated offering.

While slumming it at a workers bar Princess Bala (Stone) encounters the erstwhile Z and after a "Saturday Night Fever" / "Pulp Fiction" pastiche dance he falls for her. Swapping places with his Soldier friend Weaver (Stallone), Z hopes to impress the princess, but instead he finds himself sent off to war against the Termites by General Mandible (Hackman). While back home Weaver falls for Z's fellow worker Azteca (Lopez). As the sole survivor of the battle, Z returns triumphant "One to nothing - we win!" but when his deception is exposed he is forced to flee the colony accidentally taking Bala with him as a hostage.

A visit to Insectopia, a Central Park litter bin, an encounter with a W.A.S.P. couple (Aykroyd & Curtin), and a near death experience in a rain drop, bring Bala and Z closer together. So when Mandible's henchman Colonel Cutter (Walken) turns up to take Bala back, Z sets off to rescue her. Upon his return Z uncovers Mandible's plan to marry Bala and eliminate the Queen (Bancroft) along with the entire worker class so he can command the colony.

REVIEW: While Disney does what it does best a light fluffy story, strangely sans musical numbers, DreamWorks treads a decidedly more daring path. Providing us with a study of the individuals place in society, Alcot et al quote Marx and stage a communist revolution mid-film, casting itself in the noble tradition of "Animal Farm" as a kids cartoon with a political message.

The DreamWorks epic boasts an all star cast, parodying their established personas, Stallone excels as the soft hearted giant soldier Weaver, Lopez is as seductive as she is spunky in her role as worker babe Azteca, Bancroft and Stone are regal as the elderly queen and her glamorous daughter, Hackman and Walken are menacing as General Mandible and his side kick Cutter and Glover gets to tug at the heart strings as the ageing soldier Barbatus who is doubtless "too old for this shit". The film however belongs to Allen whose presents as Z turns the film into a Woody Allen film in all but name.

In response Disney offers the below par Spacey heading up a cast of TV personalities. Foley 'News Radio' fails to impress as the leading ant completely overshadowed by adequate support from Louis-Dreyfus 'Seinfield' and Diller. Kind 'Spin City' entertains with his familiar buffoonery, Ratzenberger 'Cheers' shines briefly with his ring mastering performance and the late McDowall is sadly wasted in his farewell performance as chief organising ant Mr. Soil. As for the not-so-magnificent seven one time stand-up Leary stands out of a bad bunch as the macho ladybird, Hyde Pierce recreates his 'Fraiser' character, Ranft irritates with his comedy German accent while Harris, Kahn, Hunt, Garrett are given little to work with. McShane is however perversely pleasing in a non-English speaking role.

The most obvious difference between "Antz" and "A Bug's Life" lies in the computer animated visuals supplied by Pixar and PDI respectively. Indeed PDI seem to have shot themselves in the foot on this one with their dark dingy interiors, impressive crowd scenes and anatomically correct ants less engaging than Pixar's big eyed four limbed cartoon bugs in their brightly coloured world. While the mouse has good reason to fear the threat posed by DreamWork's, the angle-poise lamp is it would seem safe.

As is made clear from these visuals while "A Bug's Life" is specifically targeted at the rugrats, "Antz" seems to have a more sophisticated audience in mind. It even has a liberal sprinkling of words such as damn, crap, and anus, for no other apparent reason than to avoid a U rating. As a result while the pre-pubescent audience sat enthralled through "A Bug's Life" laughing at such lines as "switch your butt off" aimed at a glow worm, they looked bemused and fidgeted throughout the communist allegory of "Antz" as indeed did their parents. It is undoubtedly for this reason that Disney is pulling in a bigger box office than its upstart competitor, but DreamWorks has established itself as a worthy competitor with its more adult film.

This showdown between "Bugz" and "An Ant's Life" is just the opening salvo as DreamWorks builds up to its full scale assault on Disney's crown with forthcoming biblical epic "Prince of Egypt".

MUTT'S RATING: Antz: **** A Bug's Life: ***

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