The Ant Bully [WS]

Overview

A kid who hates ants finds himself living among the six-legged critters in this computer-animated comedy-adventure. Lucas Nickle (voice of Zach Tyler Eisen) is a ten-year-old boy whose family has just moved to a new town, and Lucas isn't enjoying it much -- he hasn't made any friends yet, his big sister ignores him, his parents (voices of Larry Miller and Cheri Oteri) are occupied with their upcoming vacation in Mexico, and his loving but slightly crazy grandmother (voice of Lily Tomlin) is convinced space aliens are casing out the neighborhood. To make matters worse, the local bully has found Lucas and is making his life miserable, so the boy looks for someone he can push around -- and he soon finds a large colony of ants in his yard. Lucas takes out his frustrations by stomping, drowning, and burying the bugs, little realizing the ants see him as a threat to their safety and aren't about take his attacks lying down. Zoc (voice of Nicolas Cage) is a "wizard ant" who creates a formula that shrinks Lucas to the size of an insect, and the tiny boy is brought before the leader of the Ant Council (voice of Ricardo Montalban) and the Queen of the Colony (voice of Meryl Streep) to answer for his crimes against the ants. Showing compassion, the queen sentences Lucas not to death, but to live among them and see how difficult their circumstances can be. Nurse Ant Hova (voice of Julia Roberts) is put in charge of looking after Lucas, and with the help of Scout Fugax (voice of Bruce Campbell) and Forager Kreela (voice of Regina King), Lucas gets an eye-opening picture of how the other half lives -- just in time for Lucas to help the ants in an all-out battle against Stan (voice of Paul Giamatti), a pest-control man brought in to get rid of the bugs. Produced by Tom Hanks, The Ant Bully was written and directed by John A. Davis, who handled the same chores on the film Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/28/2006
UPC:	0012569736689
Original Release:	2006
Rating:	PG
Source:	Warner Home Video
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:29:00
Sales rank:	7,112

Special Features

7 hilarious animated shorts; Additional scenes; It Takes a Colony: Explore the giant filmmaking process from a tiny perspective; Ant habitat TV screensaver

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Julia Roberts	Hova
Nicolas Cage	Zoc
Meryl Streep	Queen Ant
Paul Giamatti	Stan Beals
Regina King	Kreela
Bruce Campbell	Fugax
Lily Tomlin	Mommo
Cheri Oteri	Doreen Nickle
Larry Miller	Fred Nickle
Allison Mack	Tiffany Nickle
Austin Majors	Blue Teammate
Ricardo Montalban	Head of Council
Myles Jeffrey	Steve
Jake T. Austin	Nicky
Rob Paulsen	Beetle
Scott Bullock	Glow Worm/Wasp Survivor,Glow Worm
Mark DeCarlo	Fly
Laraine Newman	Ant Mom No. 1
Bruno Salomone	Actor
Nathalie Baye	Actor
Alexandra Lamy	Actor
Florence Foresti	Actor
Lars Lippert	Voices
Torben Sekov	Voices
Grethe Mogensen	Voices
Jette Sievertsen	Voices
Torbjørn Hummel	Voices
Jesper Lohmann	Voices
Zach Tyler	Lucas Nielsen
Creagen Dow	Mullet Boy
Alfred Jackson	Slacker Ant
Denzel Whitaker	Albert
Bryan Fabian	Fernando
Jake Goldberg	Helmet Boy
Tom Kenny	Drone Ant
Zach Tyler Eisen	Lucas Nickle
Scott S. Bullock	Wasp Survivor
Jim Cummings	Spindle
Paul Greenberg	Sleeping Ant #1
David Kaye	Wrangler Ant
Casey Masamitsu	Shigeko
Keith Alcorn	Soldier Ant #3
John Davis	Ant #19
Sarah Mensinga	Mother Ant
Nika Futterman	Ant #7
Scott Holst	Ant #3
Susan Silo	Ant #4
Paul Rugg	Ant #5
Larry Cedar	Ant #8
Nicole Sullivan	Ant #9
Candi Milo	Nurse Ant #3
Nissa Alcorn	Billo
Pat Fraley	Ant Council #1
Tyler Williams	Blue Teammate #1
Jared Goldsmith	Red Teammate #2
Jaishon Fisher	Blue Teammate #4
Aaron Drozin	Blue Teammate #5
Max Burkholder	Blue Teammate #6
Sam Green	Red Teammate #3
Colin Ford	Red Teammate #4
Kendall Sanders	Red Teammate #5
Shane Baumel	Red Teammate #6
Neil Ross	Wasp #5
Bob Joles	Wasp #2
Wally Wingert	Wasp #3
Leon Morenzie	Wasp #4
Jonathan Cook	Wasp #6
Ken Mitchroney	Wasp #8
Sean Donnellan	Soldier Ant #1
Tress MacNeille	Old Council Ant
Richard Green	Wasp Leader
Don Frye	Soldier Ant
Clive Robertson	Hova's Wasp
Earl Boen	Old Wizard Ant
Billy West	Ant Dad #2
John Debney	Composer
Shawn Murphy	Composer

Technical Credits

John A. Davis

John Nickle

John A. Davis	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Keith Alcorn	Executive Producer
William Fay	Executive Producer,Producer
Diana Choi Sachs	Executive Producer
Scott Mednick	Executive Producer,Producer
Steven Shareshian	Executive Producer,Producer
Thomas Tull	Executive Producer,Producer
Tom Hanks	Producer
Gary Goetzman	Producer
David Santiago	Special Effects
Gregory Wade Reynolds	Special Effects
Michael Sean Foley	Special Effects
John Nickle	Screenwriter
Ruth Lambert	Casting
Shawn Murphy	Sound Mixer
Michael Jonascu	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

"I'm big and you're small." With these withering and demeaning words, Steve, the neighborhood bully, torments young Lucas (dubbed "Peanut" by his mother) with atomic wedgies and dog piles. Lucas takes out his frustrations on an anthill, which he subjects to kicks, stomps, and torrents from his water gun and garden hose. But Zoc (Nicolas Cage), an ant wizard, retaliates against "Peanut the Destroyer" by shrinking him down to size. The Ant Queen (Meryl Streep) decrees that the colony endeavor to "change the nature of this human" and teach him the communal ways of the ant. Hova (Julia Roberts) patiently mentors Lucas about cooperation and teamwork, hard work, and selflessness. Lucas will learn to think of others besides himself when marauding wasps and a sadistic exterminator (Paul Giamatti) threaten the colony. Based on the slight book by John Nickle, The Ant Bully benefits from its A-list voice cast (which adults should appreciate more than children) and dazzling animation that vividly depicts a bug's life and views the human world from a minuscule perspective (blades of grass seem like sequoias). Director John A. Davis's credits include Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and The Ant Bully could have used that film's satirical edge or at least more and better jokes. There are the inevitable gross-out gags (you don't want to know where the "honey-dew drops" Lucas slurps up originate from!), but the ants' altruistic philosophy provides a good role model and serves Lucas well when he returns to normal size and rallies his fellow victims to nonviolently turn the tables on Steve. The Ant Bully was a confounding box office disappointment. Like The Iron Giant, this overlooked film should find an appreciative audience on DVD.