(That is how the saying goes, right? I hate finding bugs in my broth.) Between the numerous ants and grasshoppers and nearly a dozen circus critters, A Bug’s Life feels overstuffed, with too many characters and not enough time to develop most of them beyond their basic personalities. They’re also afforded more screen time than Rex or Slinky or Potato Head were in Toy Story, which should theoretically mean they would get more development.īut as the saying goes, too many bugs spoil the broth. Much like the colorful toy box of supporting characters in Pixar’s previous film, the circus bugs represent a wide range of designs and personalities. Then, of course, there are the circus bugs. (To the film’s credit, Atta is at least shouldered with more responsibility than most Disney princesses were at the time – which is kind of sad, seeing that she’s… an ant.) Inspired by the classic fable of the ant and the grasshopper, A Bug’s Life charts a familiar course, with a number of familiar characters – there’s Flik (Dave Foley), the underdog hero Hopper (Kevin Spacey), the scheming, egotistical villain Dot (Hayden Panettiere), the precocious child Molt (Richard Kind), the dumb sidekick and Atta (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the princess who struggles to lead her people. It also probably set some unfairly high expectations, which A Bug’s Life unfortunately failed to meet.

That film, as I outlined in my review, was a great blend of character and humor, all wrapped up in a terrific story. But we’re not talking about any old studio here – this is Pixar, a corporation that had hit the ground running three years earlier with Toy Story. Most animation studios, admittedly, would give their wisdom teeth for a sophomore film as well-produced as A Bug’s Life. (Despite the claims of former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg that he “owned” the idea for an ant-based story, the two films did go into production right around the same time, and there are still plenty of dissimilarities between them.) We’re here to judge A Bug’s Life as its own entity, positing the question: How well does it hold up now? Still, we’re not here to talk about Antz, or even to peg A Bug’s Life as a shameless rip-off. That’s not to say that Antz is a perfect film by any stretch (the story meanders in spots, and it too often tries coasting on Woody Allen one-liners), but it’s an overall smarter and more sophisticated film than its Pixar-produced rival. It may sound strange coming from such a dedicated Pixar fan as myself, but as it stands, I actually prefer DreamWorks’ debut animated feature over Pixar’s follow-up to Toy Story. The film featured interesting characters, clever jokes, and impressively detailed animation.Īnd it was followed a few weeks later by A Bug’s Life. While initially viewed as something of a kook, the ant eventually found favor in the eyes of the colony’s princess, and ended up saving his friends from a wicked insect who considered himself the true master of the colony.

This new film centered on an ant colony, and on one ant in particular who aspired to be more than just another bug in the system. In the fall of 1998, filmgoers were surprised by the debut of a new computer-animated feature – the first one to premiere since Toy Story. “Circus bugs? How can you be circus bugs?” – Flik

Bugs life characters