The latest picture to come out of Dreamworks (the Spielberg, Geffen, and Katzenberg owned multi-billion dollar gay, Jewish, faux-liberal organization which serves as a front for reactionary multi-media schlock) is a forgettable little computer-animated feature called ANTZ. (The Z is to let you know that these guys aren't sticklers for spelling and therefore the fun must be just around the corner.)
ANTZ is that film with all the computer animated ants running around. What is probably most impressive about the film is the sheer number of celebrity voices. Woody Allen heads a cast that includes Anne Bancroft, Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Sylvester Stallone, Jennifer Lopez, Christopher Walken, Dan Akroyd, Jane Curtin and Danny Glover.
One gets the feeling that this may soon become the perfect Hollywood role: the celebrity gets paid lots of money for a few days of work, he/she doesn't have to worry about ruining his/her image, and the filmmaker still gets to slap the celebrity's name on the film.
Unfortunately, all the stars in Hollywood couldn't elevate this movie from the depths of its heavy-handed, moralistic, pro-capitalist diatribe. And all the computer geeks in Silicon Valley couldn't save the animation either, which is, for the most part, disappointing.
There are certainly a few long shots and a couple of dramatic sequences that live up to one's expectations, but in general the audience is mostly watching close-ups of unattractive talking ants. Most of the other bugs are much more interesting to look at, so why not make a movie about them instead of these boring ants?
The filmmakers seem to have gotten waylaid by the main joke of the film which is that Woody Allen's character Z happens to be a neurotic and free-thinking ant. Get it? An ant that thinks for itself. The joke is conveniently also the ridiculously overstated moral of the film: "think for yourself." Since Z is combating a communist state rather than peer pressure or social conformity, this moral becomes a blatant tool the filmmakers manipulate to force-feed capitalist propaganda to children.
Admittedly, Allen does a lot with the role; he is clearly writing the material himself, and manages a number of funny lines. This seems to be the formula for children's films these days: pick a random comedian (Robin Williams, Nathan Lane or Eddie Murphy, for example) to ad-lib his lines and keep the parents entertained while the kiddies watch the pretty colors.
There are definitely a few clever and imaginative scenes in the movie that even Allen isn't responsible for-these can almost restore faith in the possibility that someone thought about the script before passing it down to the millions of computer animators. These scenes, however, are too few and far between to hold one's attention and the film is ultimately a loser. Even worse, ANTZ is a corrupter of young minds. Save money and opt for Pecker instead.
ANTZ is playing at Regal Cinema 10, Sheffield Center in Lorain.
Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 127, Number 6, October 9, 1998
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