The Ant Bully
Rated PG for some mild rude humor and action.
reviewed by Steven Harrell
What happens when a kid destroys one to many ant piles? Think of a cross between “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” and “Antz” and you have a pretty good idea of what you’ll be getting with “The Ant Bully.”
Story
Lucas Nickle (Zach Tyler) gets picked on, beat up, and wedgied every time he steps outside. The neighborhood bully and his gang of cronies always pick him as the one to release their aggression onto. In turn, the smaller, weaker Lucas chooses to regularly release his aggression onto a colony of ants that live in his front lawn. He stomps on them, turns the hose on them, and generally becomes a terror known to the local ant population as “The Destroyer.”
However, a sorcerer ant named Zoc (Nicholas Cage) has been working on a solution to the ants’ problem. He devises a potion that shrinks Lucas down to ant-size, and the ants quickly seize him and bring him before the queen. His sentence is to become an ant and learn how they live so that humans and ants can forge a relationship and become friends. His mentor is Zoc’s girlfriend, Hova (Julia Roberts), and with her help Lucas works hard to “become” an ant. But unknown to Lucas, the colony will soon face its biggest threat yet.
Verdict
“The Ant Bully” is a pretty good time at the movies. It’s both appropriate and enjoyable for nearly all ages, a rare feat for an animated movie without the phrase “Pixar Studios Presents” in front of the title. I really liked the way producer Tom Hanks and director/writer John Davis were able to incorporate a lot of familiar elements (ants, shrinking, bullies, messages of cooperation) into a movie that feels fresh and new.
The visuals in the movie were especially surprising. Of course, as good as “The Ant Bully” looks it doesn’t really stand up to the summer’s biggest animated flick, “Cars.” But still, the landscapes, the bug personalities, and the armies of flying and crawling insects are all pretty spectacular and fun to watch as they speed past.
Another fun element is the large cast of celebrity voices. When I think of Nicholas Cage (“Con Air,” “Matchstick Men”), my first thought isn’t that he should be cast as the voice of a loveable bug-wizard. But he does well as Zoc, the resentful ant that learns to accept Lucas. Julia Roberts (“Pretty Woman,” “Ocean’s 11”) also does a fine job lending her voice to Hova, who is sweet and mothering to recently shrunken human. Other celeb talents in the film include Meryl Streep as the Queen Ant, Paul Giamatti as the ruthless pest control guy, Bruce Campbell as Fugax the inept scout ant, and Lilly Tomlin as Lucas’s crazy grandmother who thinks that he has been abducted by aliens.
Worldview:
Although “The Ant Bully” dabbles in some spiritual issues due to the ants’ tribal-style worship of the Queen Mother (occasionally played for yuks), their religion isn’t really the point of the story. The big “ant message” is that when you work together, big problems and large workloads get a whole lot smaller and easier to accomplish. The ants, although they’re quite small, are able to accomplish big things by dividing up the task, cooperating, and trusting each other to each do their part to get the whole thing done.
In fact, there is a conversation between Zoc and Lucas that very much points out this idea. They’re looking at the bright lights of the city when Zoc asks Lucas if humans work together like ants do. The answer of course is no, most humans don’t really work together unless they’re paid to do so; even then, there’s a lot of backstabbing and disunity. Zoc is shocked at this idea and asks, “Then how does anything ever get done?”
It’s a fair question. Every person living independently from everyone else does seem like a dysfunctional way to exist. The Bible agrees. God’s idea for community is described in 1 Corinthians 12, as Paul compares groups of believers to a human body. We know that our bodies have many parts and that each part has a different purpose. We’re told to live in the same way.
The trouble comes when the different parts of the Christian body start to resent their jobs. Think about it. What if your foot decided that it was tired of walking and wanted to have the job of putting food in your mouth or operating a hammer? Things just wouldn’t work out. Hands swing hammers; feet walk. In turn, some people are meant for teaching, some for leading, some for evangelizing, some for putting up chairs, some for faithfully giving to the church, some for cooking, etc. When people try to be super-Christian and do everything all at once, they’re bound to fail. On the other hand, if someone decides to slack off and not do their part, the whole thing still fails. God’s desire is for everyone to do their part to the best of their ability and for everyone to benefit as a result. Those ants might have something there.
Questions:
• Did you like “The Ant Bully” more or less than other insect related animated flicks like “A Bug’s Life” and “Antz”?
• Do you knock over ant piles a lot? What do you think the ants would say to you about that?
• Were you ever picked on by bullies when you were younger? Did you fight back or just take it?
• If you were in the ants’ (six) shoes, would you treat Lucas as kindly as they did? Why or why not?
• Do you like working with other people on projects or would you rather go it alone and do everything yourself?
• What do you think your job in Christ’s kingdom is? Are you doing it the best you can right now, or are you being distracted by other things?
