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After the giant success 3 years before which was Toy Story, expectations was incredibly high for A Bug's Life. Admittedly, no it didn't reach up to Toy Story's level but my oh my! It wasn't that far from it. I absolutely loved it when I first saw it as a child and I have grown up with this one and still love it now. This perhaps rivalled with Antz in 1998 seeing as they were both released in the same year and are very similar films but I think that A Bug's Life easily blows it away! In A Bug's Life, we are like swept away into a world that isn't only smaller than ours but also shows the way bugs make their living as well and what they do to survive so it is perhaps a lesson too.
It wasn't until I really started to watch films like classics that I realised A Bug's Life is a loose animated remake version of the classic Akira Kurosawa film Seven Samurai and its remake The Magnificent Seven by John Sturges. Obviously, there are massive differences such as characters, the themes and the backgrounds they are set in and the fact the two older ones involve humans and A Bug's Life involves... well, bugs. Strong similarities are the plot itself with ants in trouble due to a group of grasshoppers and try to find soldiers to defend themselves. If there is a message that A Bug's Life brings out, it is a message about bullying. Bullying should never happen and if someone is being bullied, they should stand up and fight against the bullies; which is what the ants did against the grasshoppers in this film.
Set on a hot summers day on Ant Island (what they like to call it) where ants are pulling food off crops and are taking them to a pile of other food that isn't for them. It is for the grasshoppers. When they see that the grasshoppers are coming, they all hide in the Ant Hill but it doesn't become that simple for them. Flik, a friendly but rather clumsy ant accidentally breaks the stand where the food is and tips it over a cliff into the water. Grasshopper gang leader Hooper and the rest of his gang are angry at this but they give the ants one more chance but Flik doesn't get away with it that easily. However, instead of being sentenced to one month digging in the tunnels, he leaves Ant Island to find some stronger and bigger bugs to fight off Hopper and his gang (he had to persuade the Queen and Princess Atta first). We clearly see that these bugs Flik finds aren't soldiers. They are almost like the exact opposite: like clowns in a circus. Flik responds in shock when he finds out but what will happen with the rest of the Ant colony find out and what will happen with the grasshoppers after this?
Every single character involved is just brilliant! Flik, the main character in the film, is a rather clumsy and unlucky ant who always makes mistakes and messes things up for himself and the colony but despite this, he is an ant with a big heart who is always well-intentioned but as I said, is never lucky. Fighting off Hopper and the rest of the grasshoppers is his best chance at proving himself wrong to the rest of the colony that he does do things right but throughout what we see during the film, he doesn't exactly help himself at the best of times. Two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey provides the voice of Hopper and what a great performance it was! I thought that he was perhaps the best choice for that character because he is a possessive and cold-hearted creature which is what Kevin Spacey is really good at by previously being in The Usual Suspects and Seven. I did like Princess Atta's character but she did get on my nerves a little bit at times and, quite frankly, the acting from Julia Louis-Dreyfus wasn't brilliant either, I don't think. Dot is just so cute! She is like Flik in a lot of ways but she wants to be able to fly whereas Flik just wants a bit of luck in his life. I love all 9 circus bugs so I cannot choose a specific favourite. All of their characters were well developed and I hope to see them again in a sequel or prequel in the future.
Direction is another among the list of other reasons why Pixar haven't failed. It was really well handled and the pacing of the film was quite suspenseful at times and it was almost like it was calm and rising up to explode into something crucial and when that was over, it would sink and begin to fill up again. No, this isn't a thriller, obviously, but there are some segments in A Bug's Life that do prove that. It also showed quite a bit of violence as well and a slight involvement of death too (like The Incredibles does a bit). Pixar always take us away on different adventures that feature different things and people (even Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3 do that. It is like they all have different themes but you can almost instantly feel that it is by that specific animation studio because of the comedy used, the drama and also some of the animation especially on the humans. Another flawless thing about Pixar is their scripts. A Bug's Life was full of fantastic jokes, some memorable quotes and some that are quite moving too.
Overall, A Bug's Life is a beautifully artistic, creative and extraordinary family animated film that is perhaps is the most underrated film from Pixar. I mean, no it isn't officially a remake of Seven Samurai like The Magnificent Seven but pretty much the whole story is based on it so I would call it a remake, personally, despite it is animation. One of Pixar's finest accomplishments! Actually, I take that back because every single Pixar film is an accomplishment so they are no failures. Loved this throughout childhood and still love it now and always will.
