Like others I’ve talked to, I was a bit leery going into the advance screening of Over the Hedge. While I’m generally a big fan of the work done by Katzenberg and crew, I wondered if my interest in cute animal pics had reached saturation point, and was sure that the film would pale in comparison to the studio’s last release, the brilliant Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Despite these reservations, I had a darn good time with this film and encourage others who may be sitting on the fence, or hedge as the case may be, to take the plunge.
Directed by Tim Johnson (Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas) and first-timer Karey Kirkpatrick, (who has writer’s credit on The Rescuers Down Under, James and the Giant Peach, Chicken Run and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) Over the Hedge is based on the comic strip of the same name by Michael Fry and T Lewis. The film centers on a group of animal pals who awake for hibernation to find that humans have built a suburban housing development around their natural habitat. As they struggle to cope with their new situation, the critters find a new, fearless leader in R.J., a raccoon voiced by Bruce Willis. The manipulative R.J. convinces the others to go over the hedge and collect food so he can repay a fearsome bear voiced beautifully by Nick Nolte.
Unlike Disney’s Chicken Little, which never realized the full potential of a great voice cast, Hedge delivers a winning combination of vocal and animated performances. Willis is in fine form as the classic anti-hero, a loner who acts only out of self-interest until he discovers something more important. In his best scene, he delivers some biting social satire on the American way of life, pointing out the absurdity of everything from SUVs to our obsession with food.
With his slow, somewhat whiny delivery, Gary Shandling is perfectly cast as Verne the turtle, but it’s Steve Carell who steals the show as a squirrel named Hammy. Thanks to brilliant execution by the animation team at DreamWorks’ Glendale studio and PDI in Redwood City, the character has one truly inspired scene that alone garners a recommendation for the entire film. Other fine performances are turned in by Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, to name a few.
Animation and design of the human characters leave something to be desired, but the bipeds mainly serve as comic foils and aren’t given a whole lot of screen time. Allison Janney from TV’s The West Wing is the voice of Gladys Sharp, the tyrannical president of the homeowner’s association, who tries to get rid of the animals by calling in an over-zealous exterminator voiced by Thomas Hayden Church of Sideways fame.
I’m quickly becoming a big fan of Tim Johnson. I’m apparently in the minority of people who thoroughly enjoyed Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, which featured great staging and execution of action sequences. The same can be said for Over the Hedge, which manages to deliver some exciting, elaborately designed set pieces without taking audiences to the point of exhaustion. The film also features some sharp writing by co-director Kirkpatrick, Len Blum, Lorne Cameron and David Hoselton. Pop-culture references are kept to a minimum and the characters are ones that I’d gladly dive over the hedge to revisit in a sequel.
Over the Hedge opens in theaters Friday, May 19. Let writer Barbara Robertson take you behind the scenes for a look at the making of the film in the June issue of Animation Magazine, now available at Barnes & Noble locations and other fine booksellers.
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