Some advance reviews labeled Over the Hedge the film in which Dreamworks Animation finally dispenses with the "Shrek" formula of rapid-fire pop culture refrerences and thinly-veiled adult gags for something deeper. More Pixar-ish.
It's not. Not quite.
It's an entertaining film though, and will probably serve its purpose as the "Family Alternative" to The DaVinci Code.
The trailers (happily) were misleading. This film isn't just a bunch of celebrities in CGI animal masks talking non-stop. There's an actual story here, one about the clash of a close-knit family with consumerism, materialism, and selfishness.
And it manages to be pretty funny!
What most impressed me is the gags timed better than they were in say...Madagascar. For instance, one of the characters is "Hammy", a hyperactive squirrel voiced by Steve Carell. There are obvious gags to be made about a hyperactive squirrel on junk food...yet they save them. Space them out. Don't over do it.
And it has a pay-off. Boy, does it have a pay-off. There's a gag in the climax that manages to be so effective that the entire audience of the matinee I attended was rolling. And it worked because they paced themselves.
Bruce Willis plays RJ the Raccoon, a sort of non-singing Professor Harold Hill. He's out to con a band of naive animals trapped in the middle of a newly-minted suburban neighborhood into helping him gather food for a bear named Vincent. A bloodthirsty bear named Vincent. Voiced by Nick Nolte, so he really does sound like a killer!
Hammy the squirrel gets most of the best gags, but Ozzie (an opossum voiced by William Shatner) manages to steal the show more than once.
There's a midwestern porcupine family that's pretty cute...and then there's Gary Shandling's character.
This is the film's weak point. Everything about Verne that was played for laughs in the original comic strip has pretty much been deleted. His desire for hot dates, his obsessive need for attention, his nature nerdiness...all gone. What's left is a rather dull, plodding, responsible character who doesn't ever fit the role of being RJ's foil.
Like John Cleese and Julie Andrews in Shrek 2, he's given no good lines, and we aren't really given a reason to care about him before the plot starts rocketing away.
This film is -very- fast paced. Kids won't be bored, and I think adults won't be turned off by it.
The only other weak point is the coda contrives a rather forced mega-happy ending...but it is an actual ending. It doesn't just END. I can accept it.
[ May 22, 2006, 07:15 PM: Message edited by: Puffy Treat ]
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Hmmmm. Hedge only made half of what Madagascar did its opening day.
Then again, the Penguin/Lemur flick had the benefit of being released on a holiday weekend. I'd like to see this film do well, as it shows signs of Dreamworks Animation trying to grow instead of just repeat and rehash.
Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: Hmmmm. Hedge only made half of what Madagascar did its opening day.
Let's look at the 3rd week numbers and see what happens I thought "that wasn't very funny. I know it was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't" all the way through Madagascar.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
The penguins were the only funny thing in Madagascar. And there was too much of them.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
A lot of what I felt Madgascar did wrong, Over the Hedge got right. It's not a breakthough film, but it joins The Emperor's New Groove as a film that occasionally invokes the spirit of Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Bob Clampett.
Especially the Hammy gag in the climax. Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:And it has a pay-off. Boy, does it have a pay-off. There's a gag in the climax that manages to be so effective that the entire audience of the matinee I attended was rolling. And it worked because they paced themselves.
You were so right about this scene. Even had the rest of the movie sucked, this scene would have been worth the price of admission. And the rest of the movie didn't suck. Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :
I just got back from seeing OTH and we definitely enjoyed it. I think they did a pretty good job of balancing the jokes targeted at the kids with those for the parents And yeah, I didn't get into Vern very well either. I didn't know this had been a comic previously, though.
And Hammy... priceless. Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
I'd buy a Hammy plush toy...but only if it included Steve Carell's lines. Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
quote:Originally posted by Goody Scrivener: I didn't know this had been a comic previously, though.
The comic can be viewed here... Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Saw this with the kiddies today, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. Sadly, I had seen the hyperactive squirrel bit done before (in the tight but poorly-animated Hoodwinked which we happened to see on video last night, and the slow-mo reminded me of a favorite scene in Futurama), but it was still fun.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
Awesome. It was funny. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hammy rules. And Shatner...he seemed to be making fun of his cliched over acting. I like it when celebrities can genuinly laugh at themselves (as opposed to scriptedly doing so for PR.) Brilliant.
I also love Hoodwinked. The story was, as Olivet said, tight and smart. Figured it out early, but still smart.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Hoodwinked surprised me. All the way through, I kept asking: This is from the same people who brought us Doogal?
It was snappy, well-paced, and quite charming...the only thing keeping me from owning it is the incredibly ugly, unappealing character designs.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Ha! I saw it again today...stuck around until the end of the credits. There's a final gag. It's great. Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Yeah, we stayed to see it, because the wee boys are wise to those kinds of things now. Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
The film made an esitimated $38.5 million over the weekend. While that's far short of what The DaVinci Code did, it's far, far more than what Mission Impossible III or Poseidon did.
I'm hoping it survives the holiday weekend...X-3 and the Code. Competition will be stiff.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: Ha! I saw it again today...stuck around until the end of the credits. There's a final gag. It's great.
Do you mean final as in after the credits, or just the little cartoons during the first half of the credits? Because Eve and I stayed until the copyright notice showed, then it cut off before the notice scrolled to the top.
Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :
Final gag after the copyright notice. And yeah, Dreamworks is getting good with these Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Bummer.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
It's not quite as funny as "Donkey's Mutant Babies", but it does bring the film full circle.
And that stinks that your theater cut it off.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Damn, I would have stayed if I had known. I thought it was funny, though Hammy gave me a lot of Hoodwinked kind of flashbacks. But I guess there was enough of a difference to get me past it.
I thought the movie was great. The voice acting was fantastic and hysterical, and the facial expressions cracked me up too. Good movie. No offense to it, but I hope X3 blows it and everything out of the water, in the hopes that they will make a fourth one, we'll need big sales for this one.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Hammy (the comic strip character) predates Twitchy (the 'Hoodwinked' squirrel) by many years, though he was originally called "Sammy". His hyperactive nature and zany behavior originate in the comic strip.
In other words, it's very doubtful he was a riff on Twitchy. Just sayin'. Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Lyr, why not hope for both films being successful? They're aimed at different audiences.
"Hedge" is aimed squarely at the family audience. "X-3" is aimed at the teens/adult super-hero fan crowd.
I think there's room for both.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Sorry, didn't know about the timing difference. So Twitchy was the ripoff? If there was one.
And yeah, I DO hope that both films are successful. But if I had to make a choice...
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
I doubt there was a ripoff on either side. Real life squirrels are hyper. Why not animated ones? Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Okay. *feels like an idiot*
I read the comic Over the Hedge. And I knew a movie was coming out called Over the Hedge. I completely failed to connect the two. Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
ugh, failed to see the ending credits. The gag at the climax was the "if you guys keep fighting we're going to turn this vehical around!" and then "he started it" bit right? I lol'ed at it.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
The gag during the climax that I was referring to was the result of Hammy imbibing a certain junk food the others had previously banned him from tasting.
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I thought "that wasn't very funny. I know it was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't" all the way through Madagascar.
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Bummer.
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