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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.

If you like a movie that doesn't talk down to the audience and isn't afraid to push forward with touchy issues, this is going to be your cup of tea. However, viewers beware: the first hour is going to require some careful attention to seemingly unimportant details, and whatever one misses early-on is going to compromise overall comprehension of the plot later in the movie. That is simultaneously the mechanism for Syriana's greatest cinematic achievement and the deepest failing of the film. The earlier one figures out who the players are and what's motivating them, the more engrossing the storyline will be as it unfolds.

Each scene is meticulously presented and follows reasonably from the preceding material, but many of the characters and themes are introduced exactly once. From then on, you're on your own, and if you missed something because you were reaching for the popcorn, well, you're going to be leaving the theater with some unanswered questions. This potential difficulty is exacerbated by the rapid-fire context switches that occur, which can zoom to the opposite side of the planet with a completely different set of characters operating on events in a way which may seem, at most, tangentially connected to the original topic.

To understand the intricacies of the plot, one must be prepared to discard the usual notions of spoon-fed character development through repetition, and accept the job of piecing together, puzzle-like, the backgrounds and motivations from scenes as they occur. The reward for those who successfully undertake this mission is a sense of how people completely separated in social role, geography, ethics, economic standing, and compelling interests may be affected or outright intertwined by shared events and global phenomenon. This interconnectedness occurs whether the characters are aware of it or not, and whether or not they have any control over their circumstances, much as it does in real life. Each person's kindnesses or cruelties can have a far-reaching impact, outside the vision of the initiator, and no film I've seen has been as successful in illustrating this point as Syriana.

All the aforementioned tangents do add together, their vector sum forming a clear direction of plot motion in which seemingly minor events are part of a larger web of causality. In order to establish this web in the finite allotted time, Syriana sacrifices some of the developmental conveniences to which many audience members are accustomed in movies for a detailed, densely-filled, far-reaching script. What one stands to gain from this movie will be proportional to the effort one invests in understanding it. When Syriana becomes available as a DVD, there will be greater potential to mitigate the negative opinions of some who didn't "get it" on the first pass but are open-minded enough to give the film a second viewing at a cheaper price.

George Lucas brings his series to its natural Wagnerian conclusion, smack in the middle of the storyline. This, the last of Lucas' Star Wars films, is no happy ending; rather it's the ultimate crisis point. If you're looking for a "feel-good" movie, this won't be it.

Indeed, it is within this framework of sorrow and loss that Lucas gets his best overall results since episode V. Many of the actors are giving excellent performances, in spite of some admittedly mediocre dialog. The one with the hardest job, whose performance was subject to the most criticism in AOTC and probably will be in this film too, is Hayden Christenson. IMHO, considering the limitations and requirements of the part, Hayden does an acceptable job; during the film, he develops the requisite amount of killing rage, angst, internal conflict, and dogmatic authoritarian loyalty that would form the basis of the black-hat villain from New Hope.

Unfortunately, just as Mr. Lucas has once again outdone his previous efforts in the areas of visual effects and storyline, the characters are stuck in a morass of weak lines and thin motivations. No matter, we don't go into Star Wars films expecting The Godfather. (Those who idealize the "original series" and disparage the prequels for their wooden acting may have forgotten just how lousy the dialog was in those films, too.) This film delivers and disappoints exactly where expected -- to its credit, and to its shame. Where the words fail to excite, audiences are left with nonverbal acting and large-scale plot events to generate and retain interest in the characters.

And this much is successful, I think. The story is a compelling one, the atmosphere is incredibly immersive, the pacing stops just short of too quick, and the characters advance to their well-known destinies mostly unhindered by extraneous side-plotting or gratuitous comic "relief" from the likes of Jar Jar Binks.

With respect to this film's position in the industry, I will say this much: George Lucas keeps pushing the envelope of ambitious production. The Star Wars films, and this one in particular, show beyond a doubt that our current technology can tackle, convincingly, the most difficult of cinematic challenges -- for a price.