As a Child, As an Adult: Review of Antz

It's one of those revelation things when you see the same movie under different circumstances.

I saw the movie Antz well after I had seen A Bugs Life. Younger, I liked Antz but I didn't love it, to me A Bug's Life was the superior film. It was funnier, it was more colorful, it had a really cool epic ending, and it didn't have the world's most unsubtle moral message shoved in my face ever 10 minutes. But ever since then I have seen Antz more highly praised than a Bug's Life and I didn't understand why. I was aware that Antz was more adult oriented, but I just thought that was because of the largest emphasis on romance and the more graphic imagery of the war between the ants and termites.

That is until I re-saw a Bug's Life and Antz recently. I'll still support that Bug's Life is the better family film; it' s still funny and kids certainly enjoy it more and is largely underrated because it is buried under the rest of Pixar superior crop. But I admit as an adult I enjoyed Antz more, and it's completely due to one circumstance. I now know who Woody Allen is. The character of Z (I get the title now) inhabiting the typical Woody Allen character of a neurotic, complaining, depressed, insecure, dissatisfied with his life and his world persona makes the entire film.

But probably why the movie didn't appeal to me as a kid as mainly due to one thing, it wasn't that funny. That sounds terrible considering I dislike that recent mainstream CGI films are only ever conceptual parodies of other films and only focus on comedy and ignore other genres and aspects of films. In fact it's probably only film I've found more cliche as a child than as a adult. As a kid because I didn't get any of the Woody Allen in jokes I was alarmingly aware of the blatant unsubtle moral message of the film (think for yourself, it's about the team, yadda yadda). But as an adult I was so entertained by the character of Z (Woody Allen) that it didn't bother me, and I found because I've since watched many more films, the Antz story telling technique is better than most.

The film also gets a lot of credit for being the first mainstream CGI film outside of Pixar and the first film to start the animation branch at Dreamworks. The animation itself is interesting but slightly crude, though not nearly as bad as the Clone wars.

But Antz as a story is really only worthwhile as a parody of Woody Allen, granted a very good parody, but for those who don't know who Woody Allen is, the film may still be a good time killer but is largely just a cliche.