Over the Hedge

I LOVED IT! I completely loved it. It was after-work Friday hours, almost the time to sleep. However, I had an urge to watch something, something really light. The moment I started it, it didn't make me bore for a moment. I got a sharp idea that it's a story about humans from the eyes of animals. Comes up, it's much more than that. It has real comedy, adventurous sit-com and is cunningly clever. The writing is FLAWLESS. The dialogues are better than amazing. It's one of the movies people watch again and again for the terrific dialogues towards the end. Steve Carrell is a legend! It deliver way more than my expectations. I honestly rate it 8.5/10. Yet another clever and funny animated movie.

While this movie doesn't have the depth of Finding Nemo or Shrek, it was a very fun and well done animation by Dreamworks. The animation was first rate, and the animals were very fun to watch. The voice acting was superb and well cast. What I enjoyed the most about this movie (other than the super funny bits here and there) is the social commentary they presented. It's nothing serious, but it shows us how gluttonous many of us "humans" have become. While many of the human characters are exaggerations, there's quite a bit of truth behind each caricature. My favorite is the Home Owner Association President. She was so overdone (yet so realistic!) that I wasn't sure if I was laughing because it was so true to life, or if it was just so out there.

Anyway, good movie, good times, and go with good company. After some mediocre animation movies from Dreamworks, they hit a good one again with Over the Hedge.

My low expectations were floored by a great adventure à la DreamWorks – a simple adventure about survival in which a raccoon 'accidentally' steals and loses all provisions belonging to a ferocious bear, whom then threatens him and demands he replenish every item of food lost within one week or else he will suffer the consequences. Over the Hedge thus sees RJ the raccoon (Bruce Willis) scour the environment in search for goods, a mission that is facilitated when RJ comes across a mismatched family of forest creatures whom he convinces to help him gather the food he needs from the Suburbian residences just over the hedge.

The film opens with RJ on a scrat-like adventure after that-one-piece-of-food and he suffers all the detours and diversion that this mission entails. As is the meticulous animation style of DreamWorks, it lacks the rewarding simplicity of Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age) and does not quite achieve the same level of hilarity and laughter that the latter effortlessly elicits. It even mimics the possum playing dead from Ice Age: The Meltdown which evokes more raised eyebrows than anything. At this point I am also noticing that Willis' voice is much too muzzled and unremarkable to be lent to a protagonist. Although, Nick Nolte makes for a fine bear villain.

Soon 'Over the Hedge' thankfully abandons mediocrity and completely stuns me with layered humour and an energy that it begins to apply to all aspects in the film, the hyper-active ADHD squirrel Hammy most of all. It spirals into an enjoyable romp evenly peppered with 1) goofy light laughs for kids (courtesy of Hammy the squirrel), 2) balanced gags-for-all such as the hilarious zealot exterminator who botches his way through the tracking down of the pesky vermin and 3) sophisticated humour and interwoven references from Citizen Kane, A Streetcar Named Desire and Dr Phil. It is a perfect amalgam of different sorts of comedy and blends and balances its content with deft strokes. Granted, the story neatly ticks off clichés from a formula but it does so skillfully.

Indeed there is a surprising amount of sophistication to be found when you weed through all the standard spoofs. Specifically the film directs social commentary on humans' – and animals' – eating habits as RJ remarks how "We eat to live. Humans live to eat." It juxtaposes these lifestyles when the forest family teams up to assault the neighbourhood in which larger-than-life boxes and packets of nachos, donuts and popcorn are abundant and the shiny silver fridge is Mecca. In the midst of the food-heists there is much action to be found in the form of vibrant, kinetic chases, shooting rockets and acrobatic stunts over the hedge. It is even a bit chaotic toward the end but a great slow-motion capture ties the pacing together.

The aforementioned render 'Over the Hedge' a very alive film and its action alone rightfully vaults it into 'Great Animated Comedies' status. It is no Shrek, but it's extremely enjoyable. Like Shrek however, DreamWorks provides for the crisp, aesthetically-intoxicating animation of nature whose every screenshot is so picturesque that you just want to snap a picture of, frame and hang in on your wall. What's more is that its heist-oriented core with its mandatory sense of immediate danger tingling in the air is something of what Mike Tyson was the boxing in the 1980's: A safe bet.

8 out of 10

Let me say up front, I had low expectations going into the film. Although I like animation a lot, I wasn't too impressed with previous Dreamworks attempts. I tend to regard cutesy previews with suspicion, and was mostly just going along to have a potentially positive movie-going experience with my family. Things got a little worse when we arrived at the theatre, and both the ticket-tearing guy (if cinemas have a technical name for that role, I don't know what it is) and some poor sap from the commissary tried to pressure-sell the "fresh" soda and popcorn. We had to go out of our way to avoid an extra ad-hoc kiosk the food vendors established smack in the middle of the lobby. I hope that doesn't become standard practice. The twenty-odd minutes of previews were similarly underwhelming, and I was starting to get a little nervous -- is it going to be one of those days I'll want to forget? Then, at long last, Over the Hedge starts. Now I'm not an avid follower of the comic, partly because I don't get to read newspapers very often. The Over the Hedge strip is kind of a latecoming competitor to affections reserved for the beloved Bloom County of my childhood, so I'm not exactly salivating at the potential content. However, I gotta say, I was blown away from the start.

Over the Hedge is a neat movie. Granted, there are points where plot development is pure formula, and some of the dialog seems forced or weakly delivered, but these are minor snits. I was laughing out loud, along with most of the audience, which was well distributed agewise. I won't offer any spoilers, but I have to hand it to the screenwriters for seamlessly integrating action-based slapstick with some very cunning dialog, dialog that flies fast and furious enough that you'd better keep both ears wide open.

Messagewise, there are a few worth noting. I have not seen such a cutting indictment of suburbia since Edward Scissorhands. Some audiences may find the humor cuts a bit too close to home -- literally. Human eating habits are intensely scrutinized, for obvious reasons. Vanity and self-serving hubris are duly repudiated. Plenty of clever asides will appeal to a wholesome sort of cultural nostalgia, without ever seeming derivative or repetitive. There are both heartwarming and chilling references to the importance of family, especially a family under external pressures from a society that they do not understand, a culture that considers them vermin. But the messages aren't overplayed, and mesh well with the rest of this utterly hilarious movie.

There's more, of course, but the bottom line is entertainment, and this movie did not disappoint. Even the extended slapstick, which I seldom enjoy in movies, was so outrageous and excessive that it punched through to my funny bone and had me slapping my knee along with my family. Oh yeah, my family -- they liked the movie too, they liked it a lot. Over the Hedge is one of those solid films to which parents can bring children and everyone has an unreserved good time. That puts it in some pretty esteemed company -- right up there with Toy Story, Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, et al. Highly enjoyable, highly recommended, 8/10.

Wow! Wow! Wow! I was transfixed! The animation? Gorgeous! The subtle humor? Uproarious! The not-so-subtle humor? Even better! This was a great movie that will surely be nominated for an Oscar if for no other reason than the beauty of the animation. While I could have honestly thought of a couple of better casting choices, I will mention that Wanda Sykes, Thomas Haden Church and Steve Carrell were brilliant in their roles. And who better to make fun of William Shatner than William Shatner? Worthy of special mention (and a second look - go see this movie again!): the Rottweiler interludes, the ripples in the water, the porcupine quills, the oh-so-amazing foliage throughout the movie, and Vincent's cartoonish-yet-strangely-scary expression.

Really REALLY a great movie that should appeal to all.

Enjoy.