In 2006, eight years after the Antz/A Bug's Life debate, another CGI movie about ants would be released. Directed by Jimmy Neutron creator John A Davis, The Ant Bully tells the story of a young boy named Lucas (Zach Tyler Eisen), who gets bullied every day by a bigger kid. Because of this, Lucas torments the ants in his front yard, who nickname Lucas "The Destroyer." The ant wizard Zoc (Nicholas Cage) shrinks Lucas down to the size of an ant and brings him to the ant colony. The queen (Meryl Streep) sentences Lucas to "become an ant" and work and live with the colony.
I know what you're going to say. "That movie was horrible and looks like a knockoff of Antz!" John A Davis admittedly stated that there have previous computer animated movies about ants and bugs. How will this one be any different? John wanted to explore what ants were like, which lead to teamwork being an occurring theme in the movie. Antz was about an ant falling in love with a princess ant and trying to discover the legendary "Insectopia", while The Ant Bully was a movie about a young boy's journey into a bug world.
"So what is there to appreciate about The Ant Bully?" You ask yourself. Well, the animation is quite nice, even if it does look a lot like Antz and A Bug's Life. I actually think the humans in this movie look better than in Jimmy Neutron, which came from the same studio. The sub-plot in which Lucas destroys the ant hill because he's being bullied by someone else I can totally relate to, because there's been times when I was younger that I got bullied by a bigger kid. I also like Julia Roberts' vocal performance as the female ant Hova.
There's a fair amount of potty humor in the movie, but most of them are tolerable. In fact, there are two in the movie I find quite funny, and here they are:
(After feeling Lucas' skeleton) Ant 1: He's so fleshy. I think I felt his skeleton.
Ant 2: You mean he's inside-out?
Ants: Ew!
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(Lucas, along with a beetle voiced by Rob Paulsen, a glow worm that sounds like Ben Stein, and a fly, are inside a frog's stomach)
Fly: Why can't you be more optimistic like my friend Lenny? See that smile on his face?
(Fly touches Lenny's head, but it's disconnected to his body)
Fly: Aah!!! Let me out! Let me out! I don't wanna be a toad stool!
Beetle: Hey, a 'toad stool.' That was a good one.
Fly: There's plenty more where that came from!
Beetle: Hi, what's your name?
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Also, I find Stan the exterminator to be a much more interesting and threatening villain than Chick from Cars, which was released two months before 'Ant Bully'. Also, remember that there were even worse CGI movies released that year, like Doogal, Barnyard: The Original Party Animals, and The Wild.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
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