Over the Hedge

I wanted to like Over the Hedge so much that I saw it 1½ times; the first time with my wife and daughters and the second time alone. Daughter number two still isn’t ready for movies, so she and I bonded in the adjoining toy store shortly after the second reel began.

What I hoped to see in Over the Hedge was something that could give Shrek a run for its money. After all, my unofficial role in reviewing these kids movies is as promoter. I want them to be so good that audiences can’t get enough of them and Hollywood is forced to make more.

Instead what I saw was a movie that tries to be good for me, like kale or oat bran or something else loaded with antioxidants and high in nonsoluble fiber.

Over the Hedge starts with a fast-talking raccoon named RJ (Bruce Willis) who, in a fit of late-winter hunger pangs, raids the food cache of Vincent, a hibernating bear voiced with rumbly grumpiness by Nick Nolte. But RJ gets greedy. Just as he’s about to become bear chow, he talks Vincent into a week-long extension if he can replace Vincent’s transfat-laden stores, little red wagon and all.

RJ makes his way to the distant exurbs and insinuates his way into a post-modern family of foraging animals who are surprised to wake up from hibernation to find their forest home now surrounded by 'Rancho Camelot.' High jinks ensue. The family is led by Verne (Garry Shandling) and includes Hammie, a hyperactive squirrel voiced by Steve Carell, a Skunk voiced by stand-up comedienne Wanda Sykes, plus an all-Canadian cast of possums and porcupines that include William Shatner, Avril Lavigne, Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara.

The performances are all first-rate, especially Carell. And wasn’t Shatner born to play possum? Allison Janey is also effective as Gladys, the harsh and obsessive home owner’s association president.

The production values are very high and the story has an actual plotline and believable characterizations. This isn’t a movie that tries to be beautiful, but there are several visually good-looking scenes. Plus, there are laughs for both the kiddies and the adults.

But too often, especially in the early going, Over the Hedge tries not to be a kid’s movie so much as a satire meant for the parents in the theater. There’s nothing wrong with satire, in a kid’s movie or any movie. But the satire in Over the Hedge was a little too pointed for my taste. For instance, when the worldly-wise RJ is explaining the human’s obsession with food to his new family.

I get it, we’re all too fat. One of the Girl Scouts and her mother in the movie were too fat, as was the ‘Verminator.’ In the interest of full disclosure, I’m too fat. The news tells me there's 'an epidemic of obesity' every day. Do I really need a cartoon to pile on too? What happened to Mary Poppins and ‘a spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down?’

Oh, right. Sugar’s too high in carbs.

Over the Hedge is “rated PG for some rude humor and mild comic action,” by the MPAA, whatever ‘mild comic action’ is.

I give it a grade of A-.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. In this movie a B- became an A-, for instance. It could have been an A if they would have spent less time poking fun at fat guys like me.