{"id":23125,"date":"2019-03-04T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T17:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=23125"},"modified":"2019-03-04T23:28:07","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T04:28:07","slug":"pixar-palooza-ii-a-bugs-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/entertainment\/2019\/03\/04\/pixar-palooza-ii-a-bugs-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Pixar Palooza II: A Bug’s Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0So it goes without saying, but \u201cToy Story\u201d was a gigantic success. Not only was it praised by critics and audiences, but it made over $400,000,000 worldwide, making it the highest grossing film of 1995. With its witty sense of humor, colorful cast of characters and heartfelt writing, it truly transformed how animated movies were made and viewed. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Then they made \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Now I\u2019m sure this film has many fans who call it an underrated classic. However after such a monumental film like \u201cToy Story,\u201d \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life\u201d does appear slightly underwhelming harmless but underwhelming. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0This film is directed by John Lasseter and is the second film in the Pixar library. And it\u2019s strange how the most interesting thing about \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life\u201d isn\u2019t the movie itself, but the story behind it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0Shortly after the release of \u201cThe Lion King,\u201d Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of the big guns over at Disney, left the company due to a power struggle. He would move on to found DreamWorks in 1994, providing Disney with some competition. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0After Katzenberg left, he and his team began working on a CG animated film about bugs around the same time \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life\u201d was in development. The movie was set to release Oct. 2, 1998, a month before Pixar\u2019s \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0This was done to directly compete with \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life,\u201d which Jeffrey Katzenberg believed was originally his idea. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0When the dust settled, \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life\u201d was the financial victor, grossing over $162,000,000 and becoming the fourth highest grossing movie of 1998.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0While I could write a whole column comparing \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life\u201d and \u201cAntz,\u201d here I will simply be judging Pixar\u2019s bug flick for what it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Our main protagonist, Flik (Dave Foley), is an ant. He is an outcast in his colony due to his inventions constantly causing problems for the other ants. When one of his antics goes too far, the food stored for the grasshoppers is destroyed. When the head grasshopper (Kevin Spacey) finds out, he is furious and demands that the ants double their workload or face annihilation. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The Princess (Julia Louis Dreyfus) is panicked and wants to punish Flik for his mistake. Flik, on the other hand, proposes that he venture off from the colony in search of warrior bugs strong enough to fight off the grasshoppers. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Fed up with his antics and hoping to rid the colony of Flik, she agrees and Flik embarks on an adventure to find the warrior bugs. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0He finds his way to a bug civilization where he meets a gang of Circus performers led by a flea brilliantly named P.T. Flea (John Ratzenburg). Despite his best efforts, his performers are not up to snuff and his circus is the laughing stock of the town. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0However, when Flik witnesses the performers getting mixed up in a bar fight, he confuses them for mighty warriors and asks them to come to his colony. They agree, believing he is hiring them to put on a show and the group make their way back to the colony. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Upon arrival, the circus bugs quickly discover that they have been recruited to fight the grasshoppers. From here, it\u2019s up to Flik and his band of misfits to contrive a plan to ride the colony of the grasshoppers without giving away who they really are. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0From what I\u2019ve described, this appears to be a fairly competent family film. Its bright and colorful and the sharp wit of Pixar is present. So where does \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life\u201d fall flat? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Well, one of the film\u2019s major weak point is the story. Not that it\u2019s a bad idea for a story, but it\u2019s riddled with overused clich\u00e9s and tropes that bog down a rather creative premise. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0You have the dorky misfit protagonist who gets the girl in the end, the authority figure who just doesn\u2019t understand, the cutesy kid character who only exists to sell merchandise and that dreaded liar revealed clich\u00e9. You know the one where the protagonist has a secret which is revealed, is cast out by all but maybe two characters, and ultimately is forgiven in the third act of the film. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0This story trope has plagued countless films like \u201cOver the Hedge,\u201d \u201cRango\u201d or \u201cThe Road to El Dorado.\u201d And unfortunately, \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life\u201d is very reliant on clich\u00e9s like these and many more and nothing new is done with them. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The characters, while portrayed by a talented cast, are rather hit or miss. Flik, for example, is not an interesting protagonist. He\u2019s pretty much your basic dorky inventor. The other ants, aside from maybe the Princess, are just about as bland as Flik. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0None of these are terrible characters, but they don\u2019t resonate with me the same way ones like Buzz Lightyear, Sully or Mr. Incredible do. The one exception, however, are the circus bugs. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0These characters are where the real entertainment lies. Just to recap; there\u2019s a male ladybug who\u2019s constantly mistaken for a woman, a stick bug who is only used as a stick, who\u2019s only trick is being a stick, a rhinoceros beetle played by Brad Garret, a preying mantis and his wife who are magicians, a scatterbrained spider and a cowardly caterpillar with a thick accent. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0These characters and their interactions off of each other lead to some genuinely hilarious scenes. The scene where they realize that the ants want them to defeat the grasshoppers remains the best scene in the whole movie. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Even the villains, while not the strongest of the Pixar lineup, still manage to get a chuckle out of me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0So all in all, \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life\u201d is sort of a mixed bag. It definitely feels like a step down from Pixar\u2019s now legendary reputation, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s terrible. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cA Bug\u2019s Life\u201d is not \u201cCars 2\u201d and does have some stand out moments. It\u2019s bright and colorful, well written and possesses great comic relief and a very talented cast. However, it simply needed stronger characters and a more unique story. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s perfectly fine for kids as there is nothing flat out terrible in \u201cA Bugs Life\u201d, however it simply consists of things we\u2019ve seen before.<\/span><\/p>\n

Samuel J. Claude<\/strong>
\nAssociate Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0So it goes without saying, but \u201cToy Story\u201d was a gigantic success. Not only was it praised by critics and audiences, but it made over $400,000,000 worldwide, making it the highest grossing film of 1995. With its witty sense of humor, colorful cast of characters and heartfelt writing, it truly transformed how animated movies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":23127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2104,2112,2109],"tags":[3065,1631,862,1386,366,2141,1384,863,2965,74,2472,1678],"class_list":["post-23125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-films","category-opinion","tag-a-bugs-life","tag-animation","tag-disney","tag-entertainment","tag-films","tag-online-exclusive","tag-opinion","tag-pixar","tag-pixar-palooza","tag-reviews","tag-samuel-claude","tag-toy-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Screen-Shot-2019-02-28-at-5.16.04-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-60Z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23131,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23125\/revisions\/23131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}