The Ant Bully (film)

''The Ant Bully'' is a 2006 American animated fantasy adventure comedy film co-produced, written for the screen, and directed by John A. Davis and based on the 1999 children's book of the same name. The film features an ensemble voice cast including Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, and Paul Giamatti. The story follows Lucas Nickle, a 10-year-old bullied boy who, after attacking the nearby ant colony out of frustration, is shrunk by the ants and is ordered to work amongst them. The film was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, who also produced it alongside Legendary Pictures in their first animated film, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman's Playtone, and Davis and Keith Alcorn's DNA Productions, which also provided the film's animation.

Released on July 28, 2006, ''The Ant Bully'' received mixed reviews from critics and became a box-office failure, grossing $55 million against its $50 million budget. Due to this, many DNA employees were laid off, leading to the studio's closure. This was Ricardo Montalbán's final film role before his death in 2009.

Plot

10-year-old Lucas Nickle is left with his older sister Tiffany and alien-obsessed grandmother Mommo when his parents go to Puerto Vallarta for their wedding anniversary. Neglected by his family and tormented by a local bully named Steve and his friends, Lucas takes his anger out on an anthill in his front yard by flooding it with his water gun. Zoc, an eccentric sorcerer ant, wants to fight back, while Hova, a nurse ant who is fascinated with humans, wishes to communicate with Lucas. The leaders of the colony decide to use a potion of Zoc's creation to shrink Lucas down to ant size.

The local exterminator, Stan Beals, manipulates Lucas into signing a contract for his services, claiming his father ordered them but forgot to sign the contract before leaving and told by him to have Lucas sign in this event. That night, Zoc and a troop of ants administer the potion into Lucas' ear while he sleeps, leaving him miniaturized, and carry him to the anthill. Zoc insists that Lucas be studied and eaten, but is overruled by the Queen, who sentences Lucas to hard labor. Hova volunteers to train Lucas, alongside two of her friends, Kreela and Fugax. When the ants are attacked by wasps, Lucas uses a discarded firecracker to frighten them away, earning the respect of all of the ants except Zoc.

That night, Lucas is shown paintings of the Ant Mother, who is prophesied to return to the colony and provide sustenance, and the Cloud-Breather, an ominous figure who heralds death. Recognizing the Cloud-Breather as Beals, Lucas convinces Hova, Fugax, and Kreela to visit his house and collect candy jelly beans while he attempts to terminate Beals' contract, but unknowingly calls a local pizza restaurant instead. Upon their return, Zoc, finding out that Hova was put in possible danger, accuses Lucas for further treachery and says that he will never give him the potion to turn him back to normal. A frightened Lucas runs away, leaving Hova angry with Zoc. Lucas is then eaten by a frog but is freed by Zoc, who starts to like him and realizes he is not so bad after all. Afterwards, the two bond and Zoc explains that ants work for the benefit of the colony. Lucas responds by stating that most humans work for personal gain, leaving Zoc confused as to how anything is accomplished in the human world.

The following day, Beals arrives to exterminate the colony, and Lucas and Zoc enlist the wasps' aid. During the battle, Lucas saves the lives of Hova and an injured wasp. Just as Beals is about to douse the anthill with pesticide, a beetle and a glom worm bite him in the crotch, causing him to double over in pain. Lucas, Zoc, and Hova inject Beals with the shrinking potion mixed with wasp venom, severely deforming him into a cone-headed dwarf with an enlarged eye. Barely able to walk and unable to use his equipment or even get back into his van, Beals escapes on a tricycle chased away by the wasps.

The Queen pronounces Lucas an honorary ant for his heroism, naming him "Rokai", before Zoc returns Lucas to normal size. Lucas finally stands up to Steve, whose friends turn on him, and showers the colony with jelly beans as a parting gift.

Voice cast

Additional voices were provided by Tyler James Williams, Jake Goldberg, Austin Majors, Jaishon Fisher, Tom Kenny, Neil Ross, Bob Joles, Wally Wingert, Leon Morenzie, Johnathan Cook, Clive Robertson, S. Scott Bullock, Susan Silo, Zack Shada, Max Burkholder, Benjamin Bryan, Jessie Flower Jordan Orr, Candi Milo, Nika Futterman, Colin Ford, Nicole Sullivan, Pat Fraley, Shane Baumel, Paul Greenberg and David Kaye.

Production

Tom Hanks originally conceived the idea for an animated film adaptation of '' The Ant Bully'' after reading the book with his child. He then sent a copy to John A. Davis, due to Davis' work on the animated film '' Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius'' (2001). Davis came up with a potential take on the story within a few days. "To be honest, when I first looked at it, I thought Oh, why does it have to be ants again?" said Davis. "But the more I thought about it, I said, So what? It's got as much to do with ''The Incredible Shrinking Man'' as it does the other bug movies. It's a completely different story."

Hanks agreed that the story could be expanded considerably. Keith Alcorn, DNA Productions co-founder and one of the film's executive producers, had a similar initial reaction to the project as Davis did, recalling "My first thought was, 'not another ant movie.' But looking at the actual story, this was really about a little boy and how he learns about the world by having to live beneath the surface." Davis states that he felt like something of a hypocrite when, while he was working on the script, carpenter ants infested his house and he called an exterminator to get rid of them.

The film was rendered on DNA Productions' 1400- CPU render farm, managed by the open-source Sun Grid Engine job scheduler. The AMD Opteron nodes started out with Fedora Core 2 Linux with a modern 2.6.x kernel, but later updated to Fedora Core 4. Most of the applications are commercial, including Maya, Lightwave 3D, Houdini, Massive and Pixar’s RenderMan.

Along with the theatrical release of ''The Ant Bully'', an IMAX 3D version was presented in only some of the IMAX theaters. The others continued to run the 3D version of '' Superman Returns''. The special IMAX 3D version was remastered in three dimensions with IMAX DMR. Critics within the 3D motion-picture community have given the film high marks as, unlike '' Superman Returns'' released the same year, the entire film is projected in 3D stereo. The process of turning a pure animation film into 3D is much simpler than converting a film with live actors. Some of the production took place at C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures in Canada.

Music

The soundtrack's music score was composed and conducted by John Debney, who previously worked with Davis on ''Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius'', and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony. This film has no songs.

Release and reception

''The Ant Bully'' was theatrically released on July 28, 2006, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was later released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 28, 2006, by Warner Home Video.

Box office

The film opened at number five on July 28, 2006, and closed on November 16, 2006, with $28 million in North America and a total of $55 million worldwide. The estimated production budget was $50 million. The film was released in the United Kingdom on August 4, 2006, and only opened at number eight.

Critical response

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 61% approval rating, based on 116 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website's consensus reads, "Sometimes inventive and witty, this animated adventure into an ant-sized world is a pleasant diversion." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 59/100 based on 26 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A−" on a scale of A to F.

Tom Long of ''The Detroit News'' wrote, "there's a sweet simplicity and humility to this film."

Ruthe Stein of '' The San Francisco Chronicle'' wrote that "the brilliance of ''The Ant Bully'' is in the crafty way it delves into the minds of ants as they plot to save themselves from extermination...Davis creates a marvelously labyrinthine society for them, right below the surface of a bland suburb."

Lisa Schwarzbaum of ''Entertainment Weekly'' liked Roberts and Cage in their roles, and referred to Streep's queen ant as "excellently magisterial". She also wrote that "the kind of life lessons that usually gum up the fun go down as easily as jelly beans in ''The Ant Bully''." Jeffrey E. McCants of the Minneapolis ''Star Tribune'' wrote that "the film's heavy-handed lessons turn it from a fun romp through a cartoonish insect world to a predictable and preachy snoozefest".

Bill Muller of ''The Arizona Republic'' wrote, "''The Ant Bully'', in trying to match '' Antz'' or ''A Bug's Life'', just digs itself into a big hole."

Jack Mathews of the ''New York Daily News'' was positive about the film's lack of pop-culture references and thought that the film does not "talk down" to children. Additionally, he noted, "adults may be amused (or maybe not) by the Christian parallel in the ants' religion."

Video game

Games publisher Midway released ''The Ant Bully'', the official video game tie-in to the film on GameCube, PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows, and Game Boy Advance on July 24, 2006. A Wii version was released on December 5, 2006. The game was developed by the Montreal Studio Artificial Mind and Movement.

See also

* List of films featuring miniature people
* '' FernGully: The Last Rainforest''

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ant Bully, The
2006 films
2006 children's films
2006 computer-animated films
2006 3D films
3D animated films
2000s adventure comedy films
2006 American animated films
2000s fantasy comedy films
2000s fantasy adventure films
2006 comedy films
American 3D films
American adventure comedy films
American children's animated adventure films
American children's animated comedy films
American children's animated fantasy films
American computer-animated films
American fantasy adventure films
Animated films based on children's books
DNA Productions films
Animated films about size change
Films scored by John Debney
Films about bullying
Films directed by John A. Davis
Films produced by Tom Hanks
Films produced by Gary Goetzman
Films set in the Las Vegas Valley
IMAX films
Playtone films
Warner Bros. films
Warner Bros. animated films
Legendary Pictures films
Films with screenplays by John A. Davis
Animated films about ants
2000s English-language films
Animated films set in Nevada
English-language fantasy adventure films
English-language fantasy comedy films
English-language adventure comedy films