Boy I tell ya, ever since Pixar started hitting it big in the computer animation arena, it seems like every major studio has gone nuts trying to keep up. I can't even count the number of animated films that have come out over the past 7-8 years. And all of them boast bug name actors doing the voiceover work. Some of these films are actually really good, a few are reeeeaaallly bad, and a handful just kind of come in middle of the road. One of the most recent to move from the silver screen to the DVD market is Warner Brother's "Ant Bully", which comes in at the high end of the middle of the road column. Directed by John Davis, "Ant Bully" is a film that tries to teach us that size is relative and no matter how big or small you are… a bully is a bully. The beginning of the film introduces us to Lucas (Zach Tyler Eisen), a small nerdish boy who is being terrorized by the neighborhood bully and his posse.

When they finally leave, he in turns takes his anger out on an ant mound by kicking it and spraying it with a hose. To the ants, Lucas is known as The Destroyer and he gets his comeuppance when the colony's resident alchemist Zoc (Nicolas Cage) creates as potion that shrinks Lucas down to their size. Once inside the colony, Lucas is accused of crimes against ants and is forced to become one of them. The remainder of the film focuses on Lucas' reluctant attempts to 'become' an ant under the tutelage of Hova (Julia Roberts), culminating in an all-out war against an invading (and unscrupulous) pest control man (Paul Giamatti).

The animation in the film is very nicely done, but is not the polished gems that you find from Pixar. It is more in line with the style of the director's past work in "Jimmy Neutron." What really makes the film work for me though was the excellent voiceover work done by the cast. Even more so by some of the peripheral cast. While Roberts, Cage and Streep (who voices the Queen) do well, it is the work from Giammati, Ricardo Montalban and B-movie icon Bruce Campbell that really carries the movie. I was especially surprised and please to hear Campbell working on such a high profile film as he deserves to be a much bigger star in Hollywood than he actually is.

Warner Brothers is releasing '"Ant Bully" to DVD and filling it with a myriad of special features, certainly enough to keep audiences, both young and old, entertained. There is a very creative 16 minute making of featurette where some of the characters from the film interview the director, some of the animators and a handful of the peripheral cast members in order to show the younger set a little of how the movie was made. You'll also find seven additional animated shorts that feature the characters from the film, they are all pretty amusing and certainly worth the time to watch. Additionally there are a little over 11 minutes of deleted scenes, mostly shown in very rough format. The oddest little feature is a screensaver of an animated ant farm… I watched it… and watched it… and watched it… until my wife finally came over and lured me away with the promise of dinner.

"Ant Bully" is not a classic amongst animated films, but it is highly entertaining and delivers a pretty good message (though one you parents should discuss with the younger children). Now let me get back to watching that screensaver………

Directed by: John A. Davis
Starring (the voices of): Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Paul Giamatti, Bruce Campbell
Extras: 7 Animated Shorts, Additional Scenes, It Takes a Colony - Making of Featurette, Ant Habitat TV Screensaver
Specifications: Widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Studio: Warner Brothers
Release Date: 11/28/2006
Region 1
MPAA Rating: PG (Some Mild Rude Humor and Action)
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We'll give Ant Bully a B.