items tagged with A Bugs Life

BEE MOVIE

During its first 15 minutes or so, Dreamworks' computer-animated Bee Movie is a visual delight but not much of an aural one.

AMERICAN DREAMZ

American Dreamz is like a middling Saturday Night Live skit that never ends. In writer/director Paul Weitz’s conception, the president is a slow-witted dolt being puppeteered by his staff, the participants on an American Idol-type mega-hit are a combination of talentless sweeties and fame-hungry monsters, and the American public happily buys every piece of pop-fueled mediocrity placed before it, especially when it’s swathed in the sentimental, jingoistic guise of “patriotism.” Wherever did Weisz come up with such fresh objects of ridicule?

FINDING NEMO

Fish, by nature, aren’t the most expressive of species, but try telling that to the loopy geniuses at Pixar. In the studio’s latest computer-animated adventure, Finding Nemo, director Andrew Stanton, his wizardly animators, and the vocal talent contribute such breathtaking life and range of emotion to sea dwellers that you leave the movie dizzy with happiness.

MONSTERS, INC.

Saying that Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. is the weakest of its quartet of computer-animated feature films is like bitching that you got a Jaguar for Christmas when you really wanted a Porsche; instead of achieving the genius-level greatness of the Toy Story films and A Bug’s Life, the studio’s new work is just brilliantly designed, cleverly plotted, and funny as all get-out. What’s to complain about?