Over The Hedge

Over The Hedge
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Rated: PG
Cast: Bruce Willis, Thomas Haden Church, Omid Djalili, Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling
Director: Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick
WorkNameSort: Over The Hedge
Our Rating: 4.00
Just in case Pixar has forgotten (and all signs seem to indicate that they may have), this is how to make an animated movie that wholly deserves the oft-abused designation ‘fun for the whole family.â?� Waking from hibernation, a bunch of mild-mannered woodland creatures discover that an ugly suburban subdivision has encroached on their territory. A shifty raccoon (Bruce Willis) tries to convince them that they’ve scored a windfall of junk-food detritus, but he’s secretly in thrall to a scary, hulking bear (Nick Nolte ‘ so what else is new?) In the best Looney Tunes tradition, the humans are all self-interested idiots and the animals only surrender their natural moral high ground when they start trying to act like us. The entire tightly written story is based on the pursuit of food, which fixes its origins even further back: in commedia dell’arte. Not bad company, eh? (PG)

This article appears in May 17-23, 2006.