Antz
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| Antz | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Eric Darnell Tim Johnson |
| Produced by | Aron Warner |
| Written by | Todd Alcott Chris Weitz Paul Weitz |
| Starring | Woody Allen Dan Aykroyd Anne Bancroft Sharon Stone Gene Hackman Sylvester Stallone |
| Music by | Harry Gregson-Williams John Powell |
| Editing by | Stan Webb |
| Distributed by | DreamWorks Animation Pacific Data Images |
| Release date(s) | October 2, 1998 |
| Running time | 83 min. |
| Country | U.S.A. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $60,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $171,750,000 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Antz is a 1998 computer-animated film produced by DreamWorks. It features the voices of well-known actors such as Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Jennifer Lopez, Sylvester Stallone, Dan Aykroyd, Anne Bancroft, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken, and Danny Glover as various members of an ant society. Some of the main characters share facial similarities with the actors who voice them.[1] The film was originally released to theaters on October 2, 1998, and was released on home video on March 23, 1999.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The setting for the story is an ant colony in Central Park in New York City. The protagonist (Woody Allen) is an ant named Z-4195, or Z for short. Z is a neurotic and individualistic soul living in a wholly conformist society and longs for a place where he can truly be himself, a dream his friend Azteca (Jennifer Lopez) dismisses as a silly fantasy. When his depression leads him to a bar, he meets a drunk who tells of a paradise called "Insectopia," piquing Z's interest. The very same night, Princess Bala (Sharon Stone) goes to the bar with two of her attendants to escape from the suffocating life of royalty, disguising herself as a worker. She spots Z at the bar and asks him to dance, during which he falls madly in love with her. When a fight breaks out, Z learns Bala's true identity.
Later that night, Z concocts a plan to see Princess Bala once more, suggesting that he and his best friend Weaver (Sylvester Stallone), a soldier ant, switch places for one day. Weaver reluctantly agrees, unaware of what Z would be getting into. Thinking he is simply going in for a routine inspection, Z marches with the ranks and is befriended by Barbatus (Danny Glover), another soldier. However, Z learns to his horror that General Mandible (Gene Hackman) is sending the troops to war against a colony of termites that he explains are planning to destroy the ants and use their territory for foraging.
The soldiers, along with Z, then march to battle and arrive at the termite colony, which they find suspiciously empty. Later are they ambushed by the termites and a horrifying battle ensues. While running away from a termite, Z falls into a hole and is forced to sit the battle out with no knowledge of what is happening. Eventually, Z makes it out of the hole to find that he is the sole survivor, holding the head of a dying Barbatus in his hands.
Z returns home and is hailed as a war hero, congratulated personally by General Mandible, and is brought before the Queen. There he meets Princess Bala, who eventually recognizes him as a worker. When Z finds that he has been cornered in a lie, he unwittingly takes Princess Bala hostage and accidentally backs into a garbage chute, taking the Princess with him. When he realizes that he has finally escaped the colony, Z decides to search for Insectopia. Bala reluctantly decides to go with him.
Word of the incident quickly spreads through the colony and Z's act of individuality sparks a revolution in the workers and productivity grinds to a halt. Infuriated, General Mandible begins to publicly portray Z as a villain who only cares about himself. Mandible then promotes the glory of conformity and promises them a better life once they complete the Mega Tunnel. When the crowd is back under control again, Mandible notices Weaver in the crowd of workers and orders Colonel Cutter (Christopher Walken) to bring him in for questioning.
Weaver is beaten mercilessly while being questioned as to Z's whereabouts. When he refuses to talk, Mandible orders that Azteca be brought in, in whom Weaver had recently taken an interest. When Mandible begins to torture her, Weaver reveals that Z may be searching for Insectopia. Knowing full well of the place's existence, Mandible sends Cutter to its location to retrieve the Princess and kill Z.
Z and Bala finally stumble into Insectopia where Bala begins to return his feelings. Later that night, they settle down around a campfire with a group of other insects. When Z momentarily leaves to find wood for their dying fire, Cutter arrives and politely asks Bala to come with him; to protect Z, Bala tells Cutter that he had died. Z finds that they're gone and makes his way back to the colony to rescue Bala, aided by a wasp named Chip (Dan Aykroyd), whom he met earlier and is now caught up in a drunken stupor over the loss of his wife.
Z arrives at the colony and finds that Bala has been held captive. After rescuing her, they find that the workers have been unknowingly building their own death trap. General Mandible's "Mega Tunnel" leads straight to a lake, which Mandible will use to drown the workers who have all gathered at the opening ceremony. Bala goes to warn the workers and her mother at the ceremony while Z goes to the tunnel exit to stop the workers from digging any further. He fails to convince the foreman ordering them to dig, however, until a final strike with a pickaxe by the foreman opens a leak, which breaks the exit open and allows the water to rush in. Z and Bala unify the workers into a single working unit and build a towering ladder of ants towards the surface as the water continues to rise.
Meanwhile, General Mandible and his soldiers are gathered at the surface where he explains to them his vision of a new colony with none of the "worker filth". He is interrupted, however, when the workers successfully claw their way to the surface and break through. Mandible is furious and grabs a spear to kill Z while he is defenseless. Cutter, however, has grown tired of Mandible's cruelty and strikes him down, helping Z out of the hole.
Infuriated, Mandible attacks Cutter but instead strikes Z, both of them falling off into the colony; Mandible is killed after crashing into a tree root and Z falls into the water, from which Cutter rescues him. Cutter tells the other soldiers to help the workers up to the surface. At the surface, Bala resuscitates him and the ants celebrate their victory. Z is lauded for his heroism and marries Bala. Together they rebuild the colony with Cutter as their General, transforming the colony from a conformist military state into a community that values each and every one of its members.
[edit] Cast
[edit] Main
- Woody Allen as Z
- Sharon Stone as Princess Bala
- Gene Hackman as General Mandible
- Sylvester Stallone as Weaver
- Jennifer Lopez as Azteca
- Christopher Walken as Colonel Cutter (later General Cutter)
[edit] Supporting Cast
- Anne Bancroft as The Queen Ant
- Dan Aykroyd as Chip The Wasp
- John Mahoney as Head Of The Workers, Bartender
- Grant Shaud as The Foreman
- Danny Glover as Barbatus
- Gene Hackman as Nutty Guy At Bar
The cast features several actors from movies Allen wrote, starred in and directed, including Stone (Stardust Memories), Stallone (Bananas), Hackman (Another Woman), and Walken (Annie Hall). Aykroyd later co-starred in Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.
[edit] Cameos
- Jane Curtin as Muffy The Wasp
- Gene Hackman, Albert R. Brooks & Dan Aykroyd as Termites
- Dan Aykroyd & Sylvester Stallone as Bar Guys
- Sharon Stone as Bala's Friend #1
- Carol Alt as Bala's Friend #2
- Woody Allen & John Mahoney as Workers
- Albert R. Brooks & Gene Hackman as Soldiers
- Paul Mazursky & Woody Allen as Ridgeway The Soldier
- Mischa Barton, John Mahoney & Owen Wilson as Fireplace Bugs
- Paul Mazursky as Psychiatrist
From the Termites-Fireplace Bugs, all those cameos were uncredited.
[edit] Crew
| Crew Position | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Eric Darnell Tim Johnson |
| Produced by | Brad Lewis Aron Warner Patty Wooton |
| Written by | Todd Alcott Chris Weitz & Paul Weitz |
| Executive Producer | Penny Finkelmen Cox Sandra Rabins Carl Rosendahl |
| Music by | Harry Gregson-Williams John Powell |
| Production Designer | John Bell |
| Art Director | Kendal Cronkhite |
| Film Editor | Stan Webb |
| Supervising Animators | Rex Grignon Raman Hui |
| Visual Effects Supervisor | Ken Bielenberg |
| Head of Story | Randy Cartwright |
| Head of Layout | Simon J. Smith |
| Character Designer | Raman Hui |
| Additional Sequences Directed by | Lawrence Guterman |
| Production Manager | Patty Bonfilio Jane Hartwell Denise Minter |
[edit] Annie Awards
| Result | Award | Winner/Nominee Recipient(s) |
|---|---|---|
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Directing | Eric Darnell (Director) Tim Johnson (Director) |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Writing | Todd Alcott (Screenplay) Chris Weitz (Screenplay) & Paul Weitz (Screenplay) |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Production Design | John Bell (Production Designer) |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Music | Harry Gregson-Williams (Music) John Powell (Music) |
[edit] Movie references
This movie contains several clever references/parodies to blockbuster movies such as:
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope — After Princess Bala accuses Z of being an idiot for kidnapping her, he says "Who's the bigger idiot, the idiot or the idiot who gets kidnapped by the idiot?", echoing Obi-Wan Kenobi's famous line, "Who's more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?"
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back — While crossing the lake, Bala says "I hope you know what you're doing," to which Z responds, "Yeah, me too". Princess Leia and Han Solo (respectively) say the same thing as Han takes the Millennium Falcon into an asteroid.
- Batman - Often confused as a reference to Pulp Fiction, Z and Bala dance The Batusi from the campy 1960's show Batman (which Pulp Fiction itself was referencing as well.)[2]
- Independence Day - When the magnified sunbeam is about to burn the soldier ant, he utters the same words uttered by curious people who gather at the top of a sky scraper before they are incinerated by the beam from the alien space ship, "It's beautiful". The sound effects from the 1953 film The War of the Worlds is used for the "UFO sound".
- Metropolis - General Mandible's plan to flood the colony to get rid of the workers is similar to Rotwang's plan to flood the underground city in Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis. Also, the division of the ants' society, into workers and rich people is similar to the life of the workers and the upper class in Metropolis.
- Patton - General Mandible's speeches, attitude and opinions towards individualism bear a striking resemblance with General Patton, as depicted in the movie about him with George C. Scott.
[edit] Reception
The cinematic release of Antz was somewhat overshadowed by Pixar's A Bug's Life. In theaters just a month after Antz, A Bug's Life is also a computer animated film based on the adventures of a misfit ant who falls for the princess of the colony. Antz, receiving a PG rating, is not as child-centric as A Bug's Life (which received a G rating). It deals with slightly more complex themes, including conformity and war, and its imagery is less colorful and more realistic; for example, the ants' coloration is orange-brown rather than bright blue and the ants in Antz have six extremities (four legs and two arms) rather than the more human-like four. The film shows the transition of the colony from a dictatorship to a democracy. General Mandible's plan to "rinse away all the filth from our gutters" (the colony) is reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution."
Despite the greater box office success of A Bug's Life, critics praised Antz with positive reviews. The variety of themes, interesting visuals, and voice acting were each aspects of the film that were praised. The film holds a 97% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes [1] (compared with A Bug's Life which earned a 91%).[2]
The film grossed $90 million domestically and $81 million in other countries, making a worldwide gross of $171 million. [3]
Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- After the end credits, A PDI logo appeared. This was the first and last appearance with the logo, and its only appearance on home video was on the VHS release of Antz.
- When the workers are singing in a protest, they sing, "Give Z a chance." A parody of John Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance".
- With Ants spelled "A-n-t-z" it can be read as Ant Z, the movie's hero.
- A second and more recent release of Antz on DVD was in 2006.
[edit] References
- ^ Antz DVD - Review - Just a big kid
- ^ Directors' Commentary, Antz DVD
[edit] External links
- Antz at the Big Cartoon DataBase
- Antz at the Internet Movie Database
- Antz at Rotten Tomatoes
- Antz at Metacritic
- Script.
- Antz at Box Office Mojo
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