Battle Of The Bugs

Every pest control operator already knows that ants are resourceful, hardworking and persistent. But did you know they speak the King’s English, make and use tools, fall in love and hitch rides on wasps or beetles when they need to get someplace fast?

Forget what you read in the Mallis Handbook of Pest Control. Two movies released before Thanksgiving – Antz and A Bug’s Life – show there’s more going on inside an ant mound than you imagined. Both computer-animated movies provide a unique and colorful ants-eye-view of the world. The animation alone is worth the price of admission, and it’s a good idea to take a youngster along because both are true family films – complete with happy endings.

The basic story line is very similar in both films. Clumsy, daydreaming male workers serve as the heroes (entomological note: worker ants are female!). Both misfits get into trouble with their colonies, but eventually manage to save the day, make the colony a better place to live, and win the hands – make that the tarsal claws – of their beautiful princesses.

One major difference in the films is the problem faced by the main characters. In Antz the drama centers within the colony itself. The mad, Nazi-like commanding general of the soldier ants decides the colony is too "weak." His plan is to eliminate all the weak ants, then start a super colony with the princess. Opposing the mad general is "Z," an unwilling hero. Woody Allen fans will especially enjoy Antz because Allen provides the bumbling, stumbling voice for "Z." And true to Woody Allen characters, "Z" struggles with unresolved questions about the meaning of life, the role of an ant worker and the social structure of the colony. Familiar voices for other main characters belong to Sylvester Stallone, Gene Hackman, Jane Curtin, Sharon Stone (Total Recall), Jennifer Lopez (Anaconda) and Christopher Walken (Mouse Hunt).

In A Bug’s Life the colony’s big problem is external – a biker-like gang of grasshoppers demands an impossible-to-meet seed offering at the end of summer "when the last leaf falls." "Flik," the movie’s bumbling hero, had accidentally destroyed the colony’s first seed offering for the grasshopper gang, so he is banished from the colony, but later returns with a flea circus to save the day. A Bug’s Life follows Disney’s proven format to entertain both children and adults. For adults, the plot is a little deeper and less predictable than in Antz, and Disney’s writers took pains to work genuinely funny bug humor and entomological word plays into the script. Voices for the main characters were done by long-time comedian Phyllis Diller, Dave Foley (News Radio), Kevin Spacey (LA Confidential), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld), Richard Kind (Working) and David Hyde Pierce (Frasier).

AND THE WINNER IS... From the professional entomological point of view, A Bug’s Life is the richer of the two movies, says Dr. May Berenbaum, a bug movie fan and head of the Entomology Department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

"As an entomologist I was a little disappointed in Antz," Berenbaum says. "What makes animated cartoons fun is that they are make believe. Animated cartoons take liberties with reality – like insects that have four legs instead of six and that walk upright. But to be effective the films still have to be grounded in reality. With Antz that was not the case. The ants could have been aliens and it wouldn’t have made much difference in the movie."

A strength of Antz is its impressive animation, Berenbaum adds. Much of the movie is staged inside a cavernous ant mound complete with massive plant roots. And in one fascinating action scene, Z and Princess Bala find themselves trying to get unstuck from gum on the bottom of a sneaker worn by a running child.

In comparison, A Bug’s Life has a diverse cast of insect characters. They include ants, flies and grasshoppers, and a traveling flea circus starring a flea, a rhino beetle, a ladybug, a praying mantis, a caterpillar, a black widow spider, a gypsy moth and a pair of "Hungarian" pillbugs. By thoughtfully playing off the bugs’ natural characteristics, Disney heightened the movie’s visual effect. The flea springs, the pillbugs roll and tumble, the gypsy moth’s wings had eyes that frighten off an attacking bird, and the beetle’s wings open and operate like the real thing in flight. In one particularly effective scene, the ladybug – a male named Francis – didn’t appreciate being mistaken for a girl.

"I thought the animation in both movies was great, but A Bug’s Life was the better of the two because it made better use of the natural characteristics of insects," Berenbaum says. "If I had to rate both movies I would give A Bug’s Life HHHH (on a four-star scale), and Antz HH. The humor in Antz was just too murky and self-serving, but it was still worth seeing."

MOVE OVER TOM CRUISE. Berenbaum predicts more computer-animated insect movies. One reason is that computer animation studios need to earn their keep by producing full-length feature films on a regular basis, and bugs are ideal for computer animation.

"Current computer animation cannot simulate human skin so you can’t see realistic people movies created on a computer," Berenbaum says. "But insects – like aliens and make-believe characters like those in Toy Story – have shiny surfaces and that works well in computer animation."

The box office success of A Bug’s Life will also encourage new bug movies. A Bug’s Life broke the all-time box office record for the big Thanksgiving weekend by grossing $46.5 million. It’s the fifth year in a row that a Disney movie won top Thanksgiving weekend earnings (Flubber, 101 Dalmations, Toy Story and The Santa Clause).

But beyond these practical and financial purposes, Berenbaum says people are truly interested in bugs. "There is a long history of people rooting for the little guy in the movies and ants and other bugs are the classic little guy," she says. "In Antz it’s the ants versus the termites, and in A Bug’s Life it’s the ants against the grasshoppers.

"But our interest in insects goes much deeper than that. Insects serve as a common reference point for humans. They are a part of our world and have cultural meanings associated with them and are a common ground in our communication. So, insects serve as powerful symbols in movies, whether it’s to make us laugh in A Bug’s Life, or to frighten us in Arachnophobia."

While people may be more interested in bugs after movies like Antz and A Bug’s Life, Berenbaum says neither movie will change the basic way people feel about pests.

"I don’t see cartoon movies making people more sympathetic to insects," she says. "People don’t have a problem with insects in their place in nature, but problems arise when they get into their homes," she says. "People with pests in their home are going to be reaching for the phone. Look at how long we’ve had Jimminy Cricket and Mickey Mouse, but people still don’t want crickets or mice in their homes."