Copyright 1998, Walt Disney PicturesFor many people, A Bug's Life is the movie that didn't happen. OK, that might be a bit dramatic, but the honest truth is that this is Pixar's least-remembered movie, despite all of its many charms. Yes, 2006's Cars was, perhaps, more successful at the box office (making almost $90 million more than this story of ants vs. grasshoppers), but the story there was just as weak while the animation was just as colorful. Does A Bug's Life get a bad rap? Is this a forgotten gem?
Well, yes and no. I don't think I'm alone in stating two things here: Pixar hasn't made a bad movie, but their weakest effort is Cars, even if it was especially successful in its merchandising. A Bug's Life absolutely has flaws, some of which are similar to those in Cars, but its humor and action are far more entertaining and captivating, especially in the lengthy, rain-drenched climax. The most interesting shared flaw between the films is that they both crib plots from previous movies, moreso than others. For Cars, the idea of the hotshot learning to appreciate small-town values isn't unique to one movie, but Michael J. Fox's starring turn in Doc Hollywood is the film I always think of, with regards to Lightning McQueen. For A Bug's Life, the film is Seven Samurai or its American counterpart, The Magnificent Seven. Having the plot twist of making the "warriors" not warriors at all is also not too unique to this movie.
In watching this film again, though, I found it interesting to note a flaw in A Bug's Life I'd never noticed before: for a movie that runs less than 100 minutes, there's too much going on. The main character, an inventor ant named Flik (voiced by Dave Foley), has a love story with Princess Atta (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and has to deal with being thought of as inadequate in his colony, and has to get to warrior bugs, and has to lie about them not being warrior bugs. Then, the circus bugs that get roped in as warriors have storylines, whether it's the masculine ladybug Francis (voiced by Denis Leary, a very inspired pick) learning to accept his feminine nature or Slim (voiced by David Hyde Pierce) dealing with always being typecast. No, they wouldn't make up an entire movie, but with the actual story (of ants choosing to fight against the bullying grasshoppers who hoard their food every summer) hovering around, it's hard to decide what John Lasseter and friends wanted to focus on.
Still, I do love this movie, despite its flaws and my hopeless wishes (why couldn't Kevin Spacey, as the villainous Hopper, have more to do here?). Most of the choices the filmmakers made were inspired, such as having the raindrops sound like missiles and seeing the thought process behind bugs being attracted to those deadly blacklights. When the film comes out on Blu-ray, I'm definitely picking it up. Story aside, this film is a huge jump in animation for the folks at Pixar. I mentioned last time, when talking about Toy Story, that the animation was small-scale, even when venturing outside a house. A Bug's Life, however, is nothing near small-scale, as the animators utilize the backgrounds of nature to the best of their abilities. Though Pixar would make more colorful films in the future (because of the environment they've chosen to animate here, much of the background is tan-colored), the innovation of the venture is clear, even in scenes where color is nowhere to be found; a great example of that is when Hopper and Flik make a final ascent into the black and rainy sky.
One final note about A Bug's Life: this was the first film that helped define Pixar as more clever than anything else, as the fake outtakes appeared first here, lasting until 2003's Finding Nemo. I've never really been sure about why Pixar did this for only a few films (I'm not counting the John Ratzenberger jokes in the end credits of Cars here, as funny as those were), but kicking the outtakes to the curb have helped establish Pixar as a far more serious group of people. That's not to say the outtakes aren't funny (posing Hopper-the-actor as a prima donna is a smart joke), but they're not missed. Next time, though, we'll be looking at some more outtakes in what is one of the best sequels ever: 1999's Toy Story 2.
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