Over the Hedge
Seen May 20 at AMC Fenway
* * * * (out of 5)
Over the Hedge is a completely inoffensive animated film. It is a good dose of family fare, and great for kids. At that point, does it really matter if you’re not laughing like you laughed at Toy Story or Shrek?
To me, it was pretty clear from the outset what kind of audience Over the Hedge was looking to grab, and that audience was not me or my girlfriend. But that’s OK. I can still appreciate a cute, sweet kids movie with basic gags. And that’s not to say that there weren’t some clever moments in the film. Dreamworks simply wasn’t shooting for the double-entendres in this film like most animated films feel a need to include.
The first lovable little rascal we meet is RJ (Bruce Willis), a raccoon who has worked up a sizeable debt to a big menacing bear (Nick Nolte). If RJ can’t fill Vincent’s cave back up with food in time, RJ will become the food. Nearly hopeless, RJ stumbles on a hodgepodge family of forest creatures living in an isolated oasis in the middle of suburbia. Led by Verne the turtle (Garry Shandling), they spend every day collecting food so they can survive the winter. This winter, though, they wake up to a new addition – a giant hedge severely restricting the border of their once-huge forest, since the suburb has expanded into their territory. RJ sees their naivety as an opportunity, and embeds himself into the group with the ruse that he will lead them through suburbia to collect all the food they need, all the while planning to grab the food once they’ve gathered it and pay off his debt. But once he gets to know the crazy bunch, will he really be able to screw them over like that?
Yep. It’s predictable. But the ride to get there is fun, and filled with a few really great moments. Not surprisingly, based on the trailer and the voice cast, many of those moments come from Hammy the Squirrel (Steve Carell). Hyper as hell and dumb as a brick, Hammy is very endearing because of his happy dimwittedness. He takes to RJ immediately, and is really the emotional leader of the film – the look in his eyes when he learns of RJ’s betrayal is heartbreaking, something very impressive to do in an animated film. He also has some of the funniest moments in the film – between rabid squirrel and the outcome of feeding an already-hyper animal (who weights under a pound, no less) an entire energy drink, Hammy definitely got the most chuckles out of me.
The entire cast is very solid. For the forest creatures, Shandling and Carell are joined by William Shatner and Avril Lavigne as possums, Wanda Sykes as a sassy skunk, and Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara as porcupine parents. Thomas Hayden “Lowell” Church plays the main villain, an exterminator determined to eliminate the pests, and he provides some good laughs while the animators give him some good sight gags.
Read the rest at HBS!
* * * * (out of 5)
Over the Hedge is a completely inoffensive animated film. It is a good dose of family fare, and great for kids. At that point, does it really matter if you’re not laughing like you laughed at Toy Story or Shrek?
To me, it was pretty clear from the outset what kind of audience Over the Hedge was looking to grab, and that audience was not me or my girlfriend. But that’s OK. I can still appreciate a cute, sweet kids movie with basic gags. And that’s not to say that there weren’t some clever moments in the film. Dreamworks simply wasn’t shooting for the double-entendres in this film like most animated films feel a need to include.
The first lovable little rascal we meet is RJ (Bruce Willis), a raccoon who has worked up a sizeable debt to a big menacing bear (Nick Nolte). If RJ can’t fill Vincent’s cave back up with food in time, RJ will become the food. Nearly hopeless, RJ stumbles on a hodgepodge family of forest creatures living in an isolated oasis in the middle of suburbia. Led by Verne the turtle (Garry Shandling), they spend every day collecting food so they can survive the winter. This winter, though, they wake up to a new addition – a giant hedge severely restricting the border of their once-huge forest, since the suburb has expanded into their territory. RJ sees their naivety as an opportunity, and embeds himself into the group with the ruse that he will lead them through suburbia to collect all the food they need, all the while planning to grab the food once they’ve gathered it and pay off his debt. But once he gets to know the crazy bunch, will he really be able to screw them over like that?
Yep. It’s predictable. But the ride to get there is fun, and filled with a few really great moments. Not surprisingly, based on the trailer and the voice cast, many of those moments come from Hammy the Squirrel (Steve Carell). Hyper as hell and dumb as a brick, Hammy is very endearing because of his happy dimwittedness. He takes to RJ immediately, and is really the emotional leader of the film – the look in his eyes when he learns of RJ’s betrayal is heartbreaking, something very impressive to do in an animated film. He also has some of the funniest moments in the film – between rabid squirrel and the outcome of feeding an already-hyper animal (who weights under a pound, no less) an entire energy drink, Hammy definitely got the most chuckles out of me.
The entire cast is very solid. For the forest creatures, Shandling and Carell are joined by William Shatner and Avril Lavigne as possums, Wanda Sykes as a sassy skunk, and Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara as porcupine parents. Thomas Hayden “Lowell” Church plays the main villain, an exterminator determined to eliminate the pests, and he provides some good laughs while the animators give him some good sight gags.
Read the rest at HBS!
posted by Matt S. at
3:07 PM
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