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Title: Antz (1998)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Woody Allen | ... | Z (voice) | |
| Dan Aykroyd | ... | Chip (voice) | |
| Anne Bancroft | ... | Queen (voice) | |
| Jane Curtin | ... | Muffy (voice) | |
| Danny Glover | ... | Barbatus (voice) | |
| Gene Hackman | ... | Mandible (voice) | |
| Jennifer Lopez | ... | Azteca (voice) | |
| John Mahoney | ... | Drunk Scout (voice) | |
| Paul Mazursky | ... | Psychologist (voice) | |
| Grant Shaud | ... | Foreman (voice) | |
| Sylvester Stallone | ... | Weaver (voice) | |
| Sharon Stone | ... | Bala (voice) | |
| Christopher Walken | ... | Cutter (voice) | |
| Jim Cummings | ... | Additional Voices (voice) | |
| Jerry Sroka | ... | Additional Voices (voice) | |
In an anthill with millions of inhabitants, Z 4195 is a worker ant. Feeling insignificant in a conformity system, he accidentally meets beautiful Princess Bala, who has a similar problem on the other end of the social scale. In order to meet her again, Z switches sides with his soldier friend Weaver - only to become a hero in the course of events. By this he unwillingly crosses the sinister plans of ambitious General Mandible (Bala's fiancé, by the way), who wants to divide the ant society into a superior, strong race (soldiers) and an inferior, to-be-eliminated race (the workers). But Z and Bala, both unaware of the dangerous situation, try to leave the oppressive system by heading for Insectopia, a place where food paves the streets. Written by Julian Reischl <julianreischl@mac.com>
Antz is an animated movie that wasn't appreciated upon its initial release. After the family friendly movie Toy Story, I feel like people weren't ready for something a little bit darker, and more intense. This movie has death (and a lot of it at that), it has violence, it has gore, it has humor, it has swearing, and it has alcohol in it... pretty epic huh (granted, just being edgy doesn't necessarily equal good). The movie Antz which actually came out before A Bug's Life by about a month takes the role of what ants do a lot more seriously and better captures an ant like atmosphere. The movie A Bug's Life really doesn't seem to understand what ants do or how their colonies work, but the movie Antz does it all. There are the miners, the warriors, the drones (the ones with wings) the queen and others. The voice acting itself is also pretty good and Woody Allen fits the role of Z perfectly. The animation was also pretty advanced for its time, because it did many things that were hard for that time: Water, large amounts of moving objects, realistic face movement, realistic body movement, lighting, and many others.
The nice thing about this movie is that it doesn't pretend to be a kids movie. Ants swear in it (the word b****in is used once) and as mentioned there is a lot of violence. Like a very intense scene where the ants are trying to fight a termite colony and the ants are getting attacked by acid, are getting decapitated, and dying in other various barbaric ways. The thing is that this movie doesn't cover up death. When someone dies, the movie won't hide it.
The other cool thing in Antz is that the rest of the insects in the movie are as hideous and monstrous as they should be. Praying Mantis? It is infinitely larger than an Ant. Wasps? Like giants. It gives this overwhelming sense that Z is not only small in the ant world but also small in the insect world as well. There is nothing that can't kill him (even the princess could if she wanted).
Honestly this movie was really good, it has a good story, it has good characters, it is realistic, and has nice action. One of Dreamkworks' best.