Antz 1998 CGI Film Starring Gene Hackman

An Ant Named Z Struggles to Escape His Conformist Colony

Sep 29, 2009

An ant dreams of being more than a worker, and seems to get his chance when another ant tells him of the legendary Insectopia.

A neurotic ant named Z-4195 or ‘Z’ longs to have an opportunity to express himself as an individual. He has a chance meeting with the colony’s princess and before he knows it he is on the run with the colony’s authorities hot on his trail.

Z (voiced by Woody Allen) is a worker ant that spends his days building a tunnel or being part of wrecking ball with other worker ants. He longs to be something more but his friend Azteca (Jennifer Lopez) dismisses his dreams as simple fantasies.

In the palace, Princess Bala (Sharon Stone) is revealed to be engaged to General Mandible (Gene Hackman). Wishing to escape from her suffocating responsibilities as a royal, Bala disguises herself as a worker and goes to a bar where she meets Z. During a bar fight Z realises who Bala is, and later swaps places with his best friend Weaver (Sylvester Stallone) - a soldier ant - in the hopes of seeing Bala again.

Z and the other soldiers loyal to the Queen are sent to fight a neighbouring termite colony where all but Z are killed. He returns to the colony a hero and unwittingly kidnaps Bala. The pair end up outside the colony where they go in search of the legendary Insectopia with Colonel Cutter (Christopher Walken) in pursuit.

Antz came out the same year as A Bug’s Life, and whilst the two films are about ants, they couldn't be more different. Typically with a DreamWorks film, the voice cast consists of well-known celebrities, and Gene Hackman’s gruff voice talking about a termite army that has mobilised is particularly enjoyable. Unfortunately, the story lacks the charm of A Bug’s Life and the world is not so delightfully colourful.

Unlike A Bug’s Life, in which the downtrodden little guys were being bullied by the mean grasshoppers. Antz deals with the ideas of a developing dictatorship and the oppression of the minorities who are seen as nothing more than numbers. Perhaps those are not the best topics around which to centre a children’s film. It is possible that DreamWorks was hoping to create a film that would also appeal to adults. But there are just not enough laughs to keep a young or old audience entertained.

Antz was the first DreamWorks animation film and the second American produced completely computer generated animation (following Pixar’s Toy Story). New media is always going to have teething trouble yet Antz has more than most. DreamWorks don’t seem to understand that the voices are not as important as the story. Antz seems to be an attempt to be a real as possible; the ants have six limbs (unlike the ants in A Bug’s Life that only have four) and the colony does look like the interior of an ant colony. There is also a certain level of human involvement with the story. But none of these factors make the film any more enjoyable.

Unfortunately Antz just doesn’t keep the laughs coming. Still, older audiences might enjoy hearing the voices of Gene Hackman, Woody Allen, Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone coming from the mouths of ants. There are several funny moments but there just aren’t enough of them.

Antz misses the mark, and it took DreamWorks a long time to realise that the actors are not as important as the story. They have repeated the process of making poor animation several times (Shark Tale and Madagascar being prime examples) and have only recently started to produce livelier, more colourful and funnier films. These films include Over the Hedge and Kung Fu Panda and can match up to the beautiful animation Pixar continues to produce.

An average animation with a few laughs but DreamWorks first attempt at animations falls short of Pixar.

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