The Ant Bully
By John Sheridan, Blockbuster.co.uk

“Cross my heart, I will not eat you.”
“Cross your heart, not your butt!”

Featuring the voice talents of Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts; The Ant Bully is a heart warming family adventure comedy suitable for children and adults alike.

First there was A Bug’s Flife and then there was Antz… now here comes The Ant Bully. Let’s first be honest, there has never been a fantastic film about ants – the Disney park ride of A Bug’s Life has more thrills than both ‘Ant’ movies put together.

Lets be honest neither A Bug’s Life nor Antz were anything to get excited about. Both were reasonable movies which passed the time however nothing to write home about. At first glance, The Ant Bully sounds like it is simply a combination of both Antz and A Bug’s Life however; this adventure romp is thoroughly thrilling; expressing a willingness to be grisly and wickedly crude with some subtle political jokes.

Lucas (Zach Tyler Eisen) is always being picked on by a neighbourhood bully. Frustrated, he takes his aggression out on an ant colony in his front garden. Needless to say, the ants aren’t best pleased with his misdirected rage and they call him the Destroyer. The Wizard ant (Nicolas Cage) creates a potion that shrinks the troubled boy down to ant size and Lucas is tried and sentenced to stay small until he learns to live as one of the ants. But unknown to all but Lucas… an exterminator is on his way to get rid of the ant problem for good.

The animation in this film is great – brilliantly directed with swooping ‘camera’ angles and a rich background landscape. Much of the film is non-stop action, with Lucas and his ant friends dodging various attacks and dangers – from brutal wasps and frogs to floods of water and clouds of toxic poision. This is a film that will keep you on edge, even though as a kids film, it’s unlikely that anything will ever happen to the central characters.

The one criticism I would have of this film however is that this is more of a children’s film in the traditional sense with a clear moral message… that’s not a bad thing however, there can be only one Shrek and rather than be yet another knock off, this helps to give the film more of a timeless children’s quality to it.

All in all a great children’s film that is well worth a watch. Add to your list now.

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