The Ant Bully
A Cub Scout-Ready Romp
DMR Grades it a B+
Fellow blogger and new friend Rob Merrill described The Ant Bully as a boy’s movie. “I should take my scouts to see it,” he told me.
With that framing I wasn’t sure what to expect from it. 'Tom Sawyer' was a boy’s book. The fine 2003 movie Holes was a boy’s movie.
But for every Holes or Tom Sawyer, there’s 10 pieces of schlock passed off as boy ready. So what kind of movie would The Ant Bully be, Holes or a piece of schlock?
Well, neither, actually. The Ant Bully is a nice dollar movie, worth your buck and your time.
It’s the story of Lucas Nickle (Zach Tyler), no longer the baby his mom thinks he is, but not yet a teen either, and harassed by the local bully and his geeky gang of toadies. After the bully takes a chunk of Lucas’s underwear in a vicious wedgy, the friendless Lucas turns his squirt gun on the ant hill in his front yard in frustration.
By contrast, the ants aren’t friendless. Instead, they live in a colony with a rich heritage, a spiritual grounding, its own culture, and a complex social order where everyone has a respected role. After Lucas attacks a second time with the hose, the colony’s leadership asks Zoc, the colony’s militant wizard what he would do. Zoc (Nicolas Cage) suggests a counterstrike at Lucas, who the ants call The Destroyer. They get the OK from the Head of Council (Ricardo Freakin’ Montalban!) and they make a strike on Lucas that night in a way that recalls Hamlet, believe it or not.
Using his own potion, Zoc shrinks The Destroyer down to ant size and he’s brought to account before the colony and the Queen Ant (Meryl Streep). Zoc is calling for Lucas’ thorax, but the Queen instead counsels mercy; Lucas, she rules, must instead become an ant under the tutelage of Hova (Julia Roberts), whose approach to The Destroyer is tender and motherly.
Much peril lies ahead for human and insects and many lessons are learned. The boy part of the movie is especially pronounced in the final reel when boy and insects join forces to battle a overzealous exterminator (Paul Giamatti).
The Ant Bully’s animation is first-rate and well imagined. The only that keeps it from being a top-rated movie is that the story is a little loose and the editing a little haphazard.
The Ant Bully is rated “PG for some mild rude humor and action.”
DMR Grades it a B+
Fellow blogger and new friend Rob Merrill described The Ant Bully as a boy’s movie. “I should take my scouts to see it,” he told me.
With that framing I wasn’t sure what to expect from it. 'Tom Sawyer' was a boy’s book. The fine 2003 movie Holes was a boy’s movie.
But for every Holes or Tom Sawyer, there’s 10 pieces of schlock passed off as boy ready. So what kind of movie would The Ant Bully be, Holes or a piece of schlock?
Well, neither, actually. The Ant Bully is a nice dollar movie, worth your buck and your time.
It’s the story of Lucas Nickle (Zach Tyler), no longer the baby his mom thinks he is, but not yet a teen either, and harassed by the local bully and his geeky gang of toadies. After the bully takes a chunk of Lucas’s underwear in a vicious wedgy, the friendless Lucas turns his squirt gun on the ant hill in his front yard in frustration.
By contrast, the ants aren’t friendless. Instead, they live in a colony with a rich heritage, a spiritual grounding, its own culture, and a complex social order where everyone has a respected role. After Lucas attacks a second time with the hose, the colony’s leadership asks Zoc, the colony’s militant wizard what he would do. Zoc (Nicolas Cage) suggests a counterstrike at Lucas, who the ants call The Destroyer. They get the OK from the Head of Council (Ricardo Freakin’ Montalban!) and they make a strike on Lucas that night in a way that recalls Hamlet, believe it or not.
Using his own potion, Zoc shrinks The Destroyer down to ant size and he’s brought to account before the colony and the Queen Ant (Meryl Streep). Zoc is calling for Lucas’ thorax, but the Queen instead counsels mercy; Lucas, she rules, must instead become an ant under the tutelage of Hova (Julia Roberts), whose approach to The Destroyer is tender and motherly.
Much peril lies ahead for human and insects and many lessons are learned. The boy part of the movie is especially pronounced in the final reel when boy and insects join forces to battle a overzealous exterminator (Paul Giamatti).
The Ant Bully’s animation is first-rate and well imagined. The only that keeps it from being a top-rated movie is that the story is a little loose and the editing a little haphazard.
The Ant Bully is rated “PG for some mild rude humor and action.”
DMR gives it a grade of B+.
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. The Ant Bully got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a B.
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