The Ant Bully
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| The Ant Bully | |
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| Directed by | John A. Davis |
| Produced by | Tom Hanks Gary Goetzman John A. Davis Keith Alcorn Thomas Tull Scott Mednick William Fay (executive) |
| Written by | John A. Davis Dave Reynolds |
| Starring | Julia Roberts Nicolas Cage Meryl Streep Paul Giamatti Bruce Campbell Myles Jeffrey Regina King Cheri Oteri Clive Robertson Lily Tomlin Zach Tyler Eisen Jake Austin Ricardo Montalban Larry Miller Allison Mack |
| Music by | John Debney |
| Editing by | Jon Price |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures, in asociation with Legendary Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 28, 2006 |
| Running time | 88 min |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Ant Bully is a computer-animated film produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman's Playtone, John A. Davis and Keith Alcorn's DNA Productions and directed by John A. Davis. Released in movie theatres on July 28, 2006 by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. It is based on a book by John Nickle and featuring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and Paul Giamatti. Concurrently with the general release, the film will be offered in big screen IMAX 3D, the format also used with The Polar Express. For more information on the IMAX 3D experience of The Ant Bully, see The Ant Bully IMAX 3D Experience.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The story is about a 10-year-old boy named Lucas Nickle, who's just moved to a new neighborhood, has no friends, and is the target for the local bully and his gang. His parents are leaving for a honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, so they are too busy to notice his problems (save for his mom). His sister's too interested in her cell phone, and Grandma (Mommo) is obssessed with UFOs and aliens.
Lucas is constantly being beat up by the neighborhood bully. But since he's small and can't fight back, he takes out his anger on an anthill in his frontyard. Believing it to be uninhabited, he kicks it, stomps it, squirts it with his water gun, and floods it with a hose. What Lucas doesn't know is the fact that ants do live down there and are not just simple insects. They're individuals with feelings and families, and each works very hard to survive the everyday dangers. They're terrified of Lucas, calling him the Destroyer.
But one ant, a wizard ant named Zoc (Nicolas Cage) being too vengeful to reach compromise with Lucas, wants a way to get revenge. He tries to devise a potion that he belives will solve all their problems. His girlfriend, Hova (a nurse ant), however, doesn't agree, but she goes along with helping him. Hova (Julia Roberts) believes in reasoning with Lucas, even though he's thousands of times larger than her.
After Lucas's parents leave, the local exterminator, Stan Beals (Paul Giamatti), comes and tricks him into signing a contract to allow him to rid the yard of pesky insects. Lucas is hesitant about signing it at first, but after the exterminator calls him a baby and says that he only says what his mother wants him to say, he signs it.
Zoc finally manages to get the potion to work, just as the colony is nearly destroyed by Lucas's latest attack on the "empty" anthill with the hose. The council members okay the order to let Zoc use his potion. Late that night, Zoc and a small troop of ants steal into Lucas's house and pour the potion into his ear.
Lucas wakes up and discovers that he's as tiny as an ant (his clothes didn't shrink with him, so he's naked). He falls off the bed and lands near a potato chip. Zoc and his little army kidnap Lucas as he is and rush back to the colony. The boy is in for a true culture shock as he's thrown down the hole in the anthill into a world of giant caves, caterpillars, and ants with spinners.
He is brought before the council, and charged with "attempting" to destroy the colony, flooding the lower hatching chambers, and bringing on the "horrible yellow rain." ("Hey I had to go!" Lucas protests). Zoc, wanting revenge, insists that they should kill the boy, which Lucas also pleads against. Luckily, all decisions are left up to the Queen ant, (who is five times bigger than all the other ants). In her wise reasoning, she puts Lucas to doing hard labor until he can be considered an ant, for she believes that the colony could actually be improved this way. Hova volunteers to train Lucas, much to Zoc's disgust.
Hova and Lucas both learn that there's a lot ants and humans don't know about one another. Lucas finds some clothes for himself, made from leaves, grass, and shedded exoskeletons he finds lying around. Hova looks to see what the kid could be good at. She first has him try foraging, and that's when he meets Kreela and a scout ant named Fugax. Lucas learns that his favorite jelly beans are known as "sweet rocks." However, the relay race he's supposed to play in foraging doesn't work out well, so Hova tries to think of something else he can do.
Unfortunately, the ants tending to caterpillar herds are attacked by wasps (for some reason they look like deadly blue jewels), and they must fight back. Lucas tries to save himself at first, but then when he finds a discarded firecracker, he uses it to scare away the wasps, and this earns him the admiration and respect of all the ants except Zoc, who still believes him to be an evil, unteachable Destroyer who only cares about himself.
Lucas is then invited to eat with the ants, and he's introduced to "honeydew," which tastes great, but comes from a gross place (it's the feces of caterpillars). The kid gets sick when he finds out, but Hova gives him an alka-root.
Hova, Kreela (Regina King), and Fugax (Bruce Campbell) then show Lucas a special cave with beautiful day-glo paintings depicting the history of the colony. Lucas learns of the Great Ant Mother, and the prophecy that she'd one day return and "honeydew" would rain down from the sky. ("It's gonna rain caterpillar poop and you're happy about that?" Lucas asks). He then sees a dark picture of a human-like figure that looks familiar. The ants call it the "Cloud Breather" and death follows it wherever it goes. Lucas recognizes it as Stan the Exterminator, and he remembers the contract he signed. He can't let the exterminator kill his new friends, so he has to cancel the contract.
Lucas manages to convince his friends to take him back to his house, with the promise of lots of sweet rocks. His house looks very different from his current size, and it's much too big to walk across (especially with the rug they have). Luckily, Lucas gets the idea to go hang-gliding with rose petals (being pushed by all the wind created by the fans his grandma puts up to stop the aliens from coming), which his ant friends find lots of fun. Once in the kitchen, Lucas leaves Fugax and Kreela to gather jelly beans while he hops around on the phone buttons to dial the exterminator. Unfortunately, he doesn't realize he's called the pizza place instead of Stan. To make matters worse, his sister comes in and tries to crunch the ants with the phone. No one's seriously hurt (Fugax only has a broken leg), but it isn't easy getting away from the house.
The group comes back to the anthill by nightfall, but by then, Zoc discovers what they've done, and he cruelly scares Lucas off, making the boy run off on his own. When Hova hears of this, she, Kreela, and Fugax team up to go find him after yelling at Zoc. Just as they find Lucas, he's being chased by a giant frog and is eaten right before their eyes!
Lucas is still alive when he gets to the frog's stomach, and unfortunately meets several other bugs in there, as well as another ant's severed head, but luckily Zoc finally decides to help and allows himself to be eaten. He uses a giant alka-root and makes the frog burp everyone up.
After that, they all climb up on a mushroom, and Lucas finally gets to speak to Zoc, and Zoc gets to know the kid better. By now the boy has changed in his views of ants, and he now sees his own world in a new light. They talk about how humans do everything for themselves individually, and how ants do things so much better because they work as a team.
The next morning, the ants see what they think is the Great Ant Mother returning (it is really the ant statue on top of the exterminator's truck), but Lucas knows better. He sees that Stan is still coming, and he panics. The ants are furious at first for what Lucas has done, but the boy atones for his mistake by formulating a plan to fight the exterminator. The ants team up with the wasps to form a fighting squad. Lucas then gets an idea to use Zoc's potion to shrink Stan, but after they fly past poisonous clouds of insecticide to get to the guy, they find they can't get the potion into the man's eyes or ears, because he's wearing headphones and goggles.
At one point Lucas and Hova crash to the ground, with a wasp pinning Hova. Lucas finally becomes an ant by risking his life to save both Hova and the wasp that lies injured on top of her (Lucas lifts up the wasp, showing ant-like strength). Zoc rescues the group, and they then get another idea. They put potion on the wasp's stinger that Zoc is riding, and they sting Stan in the rear. Unlike what happened to Lucas, the potion distorts Stan's body and shrinks him down to the size of a toddler, and he runs off on a tricycle with a cloud of angry wasps chasing him.
The colony is saved, and Lucas is pronounced an ant by the Queen (Meryl Streep). She renames him Rokai, and he's forever known as such by the entire colony. They are eternally grateful to him. Zoc gives him the antidote to the shrinking potion, and the kid goes back to his normal size.
By then, his parents have come home and he's very grateful to see them. Lucas also stands up the neighborhood bully with the idea of teaming up with the bully's peeps. Finally, he gets the box of jelly beans and gives them to the ant colony.
[edit] Cast & Crew
[edit] Main Voice Actors
- Zach Tyler Eisen as Lucas Nickle (Peanut)
- Nicolas Cage as Zoc
- Julia Roberts as Hova
- Regina King as Kreela
- Bruce Campbell as Fugax
- Paul Giamatti as Stan the Exterminator
- Meryl Streep as Queen Ant
- Cheri Oteri as Doreen Nickle
- Clive Robertson as Wizard Ant
- Lily Tomlin as Mommo
- Jake T. Austin as Nicky
- Ricardo Montalban as Head of Council
- Larry Miller as Fred Nickle
- Rob Paulsen as Black Beetle
- S. Scott Bullock as Glow Worm, Wasp Survivor
- Allison Mack as Tiffany
- Mark DeCarlo as Fly
[edit] Additional Voice Actors
- Nissa Alcorn as Billo
- Frank Welker as Spindle the Firefly, Frog, Caterpillar
- Shane Baumel as Red Team Ant #6
- Larry the Cable Guy as Ant
- Larry Cedar as Ant #8
- Pat Fraley as Ant Council
- Nika Futterman as Ant #1, Ant #7
- Richard Green as Wasp Leader
- Paul Greenberg as Sleeping Ant #1, Head Lice #1, Brett
- Bob Joles as Wasp #2
- David Kaye as Sleeper Ant
- Tom Kenny as Ant #2, Ant #6, Drone Ant
- Kevin Kline as Guard Ant
- Tress MacNeille as Old Council Ant
- Candi Milo as Ant Nurse #3
- Leon Morenzie as Wasp #2
- Neil Ross as Wasp #1, Wasp #5
- David Schwimmer as Ant
- Scott Speedman as Glow Worm
- Susan Silo as Ant #4
- Lori Tritel as Ant Council #3
- Luke Wilson as Blue Teammate #1
- Wally Wingert as Wasp #3
[edit] Crew
- Directed by John A. Davis
- Screenplay by John A. Davis and Dave Reynolds
- Based on a book by John Nickle
- Produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and John A. Davis
- Executive producers Keith Alcorn, Thomas Tull, Scott Mednick, and William Fay
- Music by John Debney
- Art Director Chris Consani
- Production designer Barry E. Jackson
- Edited by Jon Price
- Visual effects supervisor David Santiago
- Casting by Ruth Lambert
[edit] Trivia
- The Ant Bully is the 3rd full-length CGI-made film mainly about ants - 1998's Antz was the 1st - also in 1998, A Bugs Life was released. The movie's ant characters look strongly like the ants in Antz.
- The film was originally going to be released on August 4, 2006, but switched to July 28, 2006 with Barnyard: The Original Party Animals moving to August 4, 2006.
- There were shorts playing in Cartoon Network & Teletoon based on this before the movie.
- In the movie the male ants' antennae are forwards, while the females' are backward.
- The phrase "Don't fire until you see the wax of their ears" is a parody of the famous line "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" from the Battle of Bunker Hill.
- The "sweet rocks" are Jelly Bellys.
[edit] The Ant Religion
The Ants, living in a matriarchal society, have a matriarchal religion, and worship the Mother. Lucas becomes so well-assimilated that by the end of the film he is also saying "Praise the Mother!"
[edit] Technical information
The movie was rendered on DNA Productions' 1400-CPU render farm, managed by the opensource Sun Grid Engine job scheduler. The nodes started out with Fedora Core 2 Linux with a modern 2.6.x kernel, but the new AMD Opteron nodes are running Fedora Core 4. Most of the applications are commercial, including Maya, Houdini, Massive and the Pixar RenderMan. [1]
[edit] IMAX 3D
Along with the theatrical release of The Ant Bully, there was a IMAX 3D version presented in only some of the IMAX theaters. The others continued to run the 3D version of Superman Returns. The special IMAX 3D version was re-mastered in 3D with IMAX DMR. Critics within the 3D motion picture community have given the film high marks, as unlike Superman Returns, the entire film is projected in 3D stereo.The process to turn a pure animation film into 3D is much simpler than converting a film having live actors.
[edit] Release
[edit] Box office
As of September 24, 2006, The Ant Bully, currently has made about $41 million. There are only around 3,050 theaters in the US/Canada market currently playing this movie. [1] The estimated production budget was $50 million. [2] This is considered a box office flop, while Monster House and Barnyard: The Original Party Animals both sold far more. The 3D version did considerably better per screen in its few playdates.
[edit] Ratings
This film was rated PG by the MPAA for some mild rude humor and action.
[edit] The Video Game
Games publisher Midway released The Ant Bully, the official video game tie-in to the film on GameCube, PlayStation 2, PC and Game Boy Advance on July 24, 2006. A Wii version is currently in development. The game was developed by the Montreal Studio Artificial Mind and Movement (A2M).
[edit] Soundtrack
The soundtrack is music score by John Debney and the main and end title songs by "Drummer Man" (end title) Performed by Baha Men, "Super Time" (main title) Performed by Stevie Wonder, "12987" (end title) Performed by Sterko and "Ant Dead" (end title) Performed by Fountains of Wayne from Warner Sunset Records and Reprise Records.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Official website
- The Ant Bully at the Internet Movie Database
- The Ant Bully at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Ant Bully at Box Office Mojo
- The Ant Bully at Gery.pl - Film (pl)
- The Ant Bully Gallery at Gery.pl - Film (pl)
- 'Ant' sets same-day Imax bow
