Over The Hedge
I walked into the movie with kind of low expectations (too many big names, not enough of an apparent premise, untested animation company), and walked out with a gigantic smile on my face and a desire to see it again. Paramount used the Dreanworks Animation team’s expertise and somehow got a team of writers with rather shameful pedigrees to make a perfect little hero’s journey. RJ the raccoon has to get a whole ton of food or else he’s dead. He finds a group of foragers newly trapped inside a huge new development to help. Wackiness, of course, ensues, but the story is a solid one and the gags are terrific.
They also have a cast of big names (too many to list) but they are all perfectly cast for their voice talent, and not dependent on the personality of the actor to carry the character (see: Shark Tale, Shrek). These big names also happen to be paragons of comedy (yes, even Bruce Willis - his action was always peppered with comedy) and the writing happens to be very funny. The animated acting is excellent, fantastic expressions on the faces of the various species. Even characters who I thought would be grating or horrible were just right, such as Wanda Sykes as the skunk. The jokes come fast and often, but they don’t seem to be the same “babble so we don’t have to have a story” type gag-a-minute type humor that has been the bane of recent animated features. The story has a high-stakes engine and a softer side as well.
One of the human characters (naturally a foe) is Allison Janney’s HOA president Gladys. Now, if you’re a human, you probably hate your HOA president; to these hapless woodland creatures, she is a hilarious menace. The majority of the jokes were completely adult-friendly with a healthy splash of satire of the modern American way of life, between our obsession with food beyond our need for survival, and our rabid desire to control and design our environment to the terrible detriment of nature. And yet, they still manage for it not to be preachy. Hopefully kids will come away a little more sympathetic to their wild neighbors.
All the characters were enjoyable, but Hammie the squirrel (Steve Carell) starts off seeming just like the easy-laugh sidekick, but he gets a climactic moment of payoff which had me in tears. The conflicts between turtle Vern (Garry Shandling) and RJ (Bruce Willis) are grounded in real character stuff, not just for the plot’s sake, and I appreciated the tasteful inclusion of a little moral as well.
My only complaint about the movie was the wildly out of place Ben Folds music. The songs were fine, they just felt super weird playing in the background (there are no musical numbers). I busted a gut plenty often watching Over the Hedge, and so did the adults and children around me. It’s a fun, fun movie, and one you won’t feel bad about seeing. So why haven’t you?
Side bar: I don’t often read other people’s reviews before writing my own, but I stumbled across this quote from an anonymous poster, which sums up some of the adult appeal pretty brilliantly: “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.” Too true, and you get all that and a belly of laughs.
MPAA Rating PG
Release date 5/19/06
Time in minutes 90
Director Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick
Studio Paramount Pictures
