TMS Spotlight: When House Bugs are the Protagonists
(DreamWorks Pictures)
These past few weeks I experienced the worst house ants as far back as I can remember. They started in a crack in between my bathroom and bedroom. Then directly from my shower handle every time I turned off the water. Then I finally noticed where on the back patio the insects were coming from. After trying every DIY method I could find from Windex to cinnamon to vinegar to Raid, I finally settled on Terro ant bait and spraying with soap+water to get the menaces to die down. But while battling my anxiety through pesty ants, it kept running through my mind: what are these tiny guys thinking during all this chaos? Are they complaining about how much cinnamon and vinegar stinks? When do they realize they made a mistake sucking up the delicious tasting poison? How pissed was the queen of the colony when I had to dump hot, soapy water on her mound? I thought, “Hey, this point of view could make an interesting movie!” But then quickly realized, oh, duh. There already is a movie like this—two, in fact.
(Pixar Studios)
I’m of course referring to John Lasseter’s A Bug’s Life (1998) and Eric Darnell & Tim Johnson’s Antz (1998), which were both hit animated family films when I was 9 years old. This might be how I discovered the concept of ‘twin films,’ where a studio allegedly copies an idea from a rival studio to compete for success on essentially the same story. In this case, A Bug’s Life was only the second movie produced by Pixar Studios following the history-making classic of Lasseter’s Toy Story (1995); while Antz was the very first CG animated feature from DreamWorks, co-run by Jeffrey Katzenberg right after he left Walt Disney Studios. One was a PG mix of Animal Farm and Starship Troopers [Antz], the other a family friendly interpretation of Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven [Bug’s Life]. Both have clever concepts and amusing characters with all-star casts. A Bug’s Life has plenty of funny actors. Dave Foley, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Phyllis Diller, David Hyde Pierce, Richard Kind, Denis Leary, Madeline Kahn just to name a few. But the cast list for Antz is insane. Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken, Anne Bancroft, Sylvester Stallone, Jennifer Lopez, and even writer-director Paul Mazursky in a cameo. That’s a line-up of mostly Oscar winners. For a movie about talking ants?
Though both did alright at the box-office during the ‘98 holiday movie season, A Bug’s Life got the better reviews. If you were around that year, you may have noticed Antz was actually more popular with older kids and teens than with legitimate families. This is because ABL fits the typical Pixar model of being wholesome and entertaining for all ages. Whereas Antz has quite a bit of mature gags and jokes, particularly from lead, Woody Allen; who is basically putting on an abridged version of his neurotic New Yorker schtick as Z, a neurotic worker ant. Clearly Woody’s involvement was supposed to get parents interested in DreamWorks’ first foray into CGI. But did no one at the studio point out how strange it is to cast him in something like this only five years after his disastrous break-up with Mia Farrow? There’s also the ants vs termites war battle that is so ridiculously graphic you have to laugh. On top of all this, the ants in Antz are butt ugly. Say what you want about which movie you prefer, but the insects in A Bug’s Life are much easier on the eyes.
Ironically, I did prefer Antz when I was a child, about half a decade before I would become hooked on Woody’s movies. As a Disney kid, I guess I was captivated by how odd and different it was from the usual family flicks I was familiar with. As an adult, I think both bug related hits have their flaws, but are still pretty enjoyable. Antz has tonal whiplash as its main weakness between the action sequences, kids plot and satire on Woody’s career. Though I do get a kick out of the latter as a grown-up viewer. While A Bug’s Life has script issues such as most of Flik’s fellow ants disliking him for no good reason. Watching the film as an adult, the ‘blooper reel’ during the end credits is also kind of dumb since we know the bloopers aren’t authentic. The funniest scene from either film might be in A Bug’s Life though [“Harry, don’t look at the light!”]. Dealing with late summer bugs is irritating, but I might have sliver of sympathy for ants if they actually do visit weekly analysis for existential concerns.