Antz

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Antz
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Eric Darnell Tim Johnson
Produced by	Brad Lewis Aron Warner Patty Wooton
Written by	Paul Weitz Chris Weitz Todd Alcott
Story by	Tim Johnson (Idea)
Starring	Woody Allen Sharon Stone Gene Hackman Sylvester Stallone Jennifer Lopez Christopher Walken Anne Bancroft Dan Aykroyd Danny Glover
Music by	John Powell Harry Gregson-Williams
Cinematography	Simon J. Smith
Editing by	Stan Webb
Studio	DreamWorks Animation Pacific Data Images
Distributed by	DreamWorks Pictures (through Universal Pictures)
Release date(s)	October 2, 1998 (1998-10-02)
Running time	84 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$105 million[1]
Box office	$171,757,863[1]

Antz is a 1998 American computer animated action adventure film produced by DreamWorks Animation. It features the voices of well-known actors such as Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Jennifer Lopez, Sylvester Stallone, Dan Aykroyd, Anne Bancroft, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken, and Danny Glover as various members of an ant society. Some of the main characters share facial similarities with the actors who voice them.^[2]

Antz is the first animated film, as well as the first CGI-animated film, by DreamWorks and the second computer-animated film released in the United States after Toy Story. The film was originally released to theatres on October 2, 1998.

Plot

Loosely based on the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the setting for the story is an ant colony in Central Park in New York City, over the span of four days. The protagonist (Woody Allen) is Z-4195, or "Z" for short, a neurotic and individualistic worker ant living in a wholly conformist society who longs for the opportunity to truly express himself. His friends include fellow worker Azteca (Jennifer Lopez) and a soldier ant, Weaver (Sylvester Stallone). Z meets Princess Bala (Sharon Stone) at a bar where she goes to escape from her suffocating royal life and falls in love with her.

In order to see Bala again, Z exchanges places with Weaver and joins the army. He marches with the ranks, befriending a staff sergeant named Barbatus (Danny Glover) in the process. He doesn't realise that the army's leader and Bala's fiance, the corrupt General Mandible (Gene Hackman), is secretly sending all the soldiers loyal to the Queen to die so he can begin to build a colony filled with powerful ants. At the base of a tree near nightfall, Z realises he's actually marching into battle, and all of the soldiers except for Z are killed by the acid-shooting termites. Following the battle, all Z can find of Barbatus is his head. Before he dies, Barbatus tells Z to think for himself rather than follow orders all his life, leaving Z saddened and depressed. Z returns home and is hailed as a war hero, even though he didn't do anything and was traumatised by the fighting. He was also congratulated personally by the secretly irate General Mandible, and is brought before the Queen. There he meets Princess Bala, who eventually recognises him as a worker. When Z finds that he has been cornered in a lie, he panics and takes Princess Bala "hostage". They escape the colony and hide, and Z decides to search for the legendary Insectopia. Bala reluctantly decides to go with him after she narrowly escapes from a hungry praying mantis.

Word of the incident quickly spreads through the colony, whereupon Z's act of individuality sparks a revolution in the workers and possibly a few soldier ants as well. As a result, productivity grinds to a halt. Seeing an opportunity to gain control, General Mandible begins to publicly portray Z as a war criminal who cares only about himself. Mandible then promotes the glory of conformity and promises them a better life, which he claims to be the reward of completing a "Mega Tunnel" planned by himself. Mandible learns Z is looking for Insectopia after interrogating Weaver. Knowing full well of the place's existence, Mandible sends his aide, Colonel Cutter (Christopher Walken), to its location to retrieve the Princess and possibly kill Z. Cutter, however, slowly begins to have second thoughts about Mandible's plans and agenda and develops sympathy for the worker ants.

Z and Bala, after a misdirection and a brief separation, finally found Insectopia, which consists of a human wastebin overfilled with decaying food (a treat for insects of all kinds). Here, Bala begins to reciprocate Z's feelings. However, during a break, Cutter arrives and takes Bala back to the colony. Z finds them gone and makes his way back to the colony to rescue Bala, aided by a wasp named Chip (Dan Aykroyd), whom he met earlier and has made himself drunk grieving over the loss of his swatted wife, Muffy (Jane Curtin). Z arrives at the colony, where he finds that Bala has been held captive in General Mandible's office. After rescuing her, he learns that General Mandible's "Mega Tunnel" leads straight to a body of water (the puddle next to Insectopia), which Mandible will use to drown the queen and the workers who have gathered at the opening ceremony. Bala goes to warn the workers and her mother at the ceremony, while Z goes to the tunnel exit to stop the workers from digging any further. He fails, however, and the water leaks in. Z and Bala unify the workers into a single working unit and build a towering ladder of ants towards the surface as the water continues to rise.

Meanwhile, General Mandible and his soldiers are gathered at the surface, where he explains to them his vision of a new colony with none of the "weak elements of the colony". He is interrupted, however, when the workers successfully claw their way to the surface and break through. Mandible tries to kill Z but is stopped by Cutter, who finally rebels against Mandible and instead tries to help Z and the worker ants out of the hole "for the good of the colony." Mandible then goes insane, yelling that he is the colony, and charges toward Cutter, who is, however, pushed away by Z at the last moment. Mandible inadvertently takes Z with him back down into the flooded colony, and gets killed when he lands upon a root while Z falls into the water. Cutter, taking charge, orders the other soldier ants to help the workers and the queen onto the surface while he himself rescues Z. Although it seems that Z has drowned, Bala successfully resuscitates him. Z is lauded for his heroism and marries Bala. Together they rebuild the colony with Cutter as their General, transforming the colony from a conformist military state into a community that values each and every one of its members.

Cast

• Woody Allen as Z-4195 "Z", an individualistic but meek worker ant.
• Sharon Stone as Princess Bala, the Queen Ant's daughter.
• Gene Hackman as General Mandible, the manipulative and deluded supreme commander of the ant military.
• Sylvester Stallone as Corporal Weaver, a soldier ant and Z's best friend.
• Jennifer Lopez as Azteca, a worker ant who becomes Weaver's girlfriend.
• Christopher Walken as Colonel Cutter, Mandible's moral and intelligent advisor who starts to question the general's actions.
• Anne Bancroft as The Queen Ant, Princess Bala's mother
• Dan Aykroyd as Chip the Wasp
• Grant Shaud as The Foreman
• Danny Glover as Staff Sergeant Barbatus, a soldier ant who befriends Z.

The cast features several actors from movies Allen wrote, starred in and directed, including Stone (Stardust Memories), Stallone (Bananas), Hackman (Another Woman), and Walken (Annie Hall). Aykroyd later co-starred in Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.

Cameos

• John Mahoney as Grebs, the Drunk Scout
• Jane Curtin as Muffin "Muffy" the Wasp, Chip's wife
• Paul Mazursky as Psychiatrist

Additional Voices (uncredited)

• Tim Johnson & Rodger Bumpass as Worker Ants
• Frank Welker as Termites
• Dan Aykroyd as Bar Guy
• Nolan North as Ridgeway/Mosquito
• April Winchell as Mother Ladybug
• Carol Alt as Bala's Friend No. 1
• Bob Bergen as Flea
• Jim Cummings, John Mahoney and Dan Aykroyd as Soldier Ants
• Sharon Stone as Bala's Friend No. 2

Production

Antz is notable for being part of the Disney-DreamWorks feud (along with Finding Nemo, Shark Tale and Madagascar) The movie was released a little more than a month before Pixar's A Bug's Life. Though the general public^[who?] tends to say they are similar in many ways, often claiming one ripped-off the other, the only true commonality they have is that they both include a worker ant falling in love with a princess ant.^{[original research?]}

Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney in 1994 to form DreamWorks. According to Katzenberg, the idea for Antz came from a 1991 story pitch by Tim Johnson that was related to Katzenberg in October 1994,^[3] Despite the fact that Disney had been working on developing an ant movie since 1988.^[4] Pixar head John Lasseter pitched A Bug's Life the day Katzenberg left Disney in August 1994, and said he felt "betrayed" when he learned Antz was scheduled for release before A Bug's Life.^[4] According to Lasseter and Steve Jobs, Katzenberg offered to stop development of Antz if Disney moved the release date of A Bug's Life, which was coming out opposite DreamWorks' The Prince of Egypt. Pixar refused,^[4] resulting the release of the film being moved up from March 1999 to October 1998 in response.^[3][5] Even though A Bug's Life was the first to be pitched, Antz was finished and released first.^[3]

Reception

Reviews

Antz received very positive reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 95% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 85 reviews, with an average score of 7.7/10. The critical consensus is: Wonderful animation backed by humor and the vocal talents of its cast make for an entertaining movie.^[6] Antz was the first animated DreamWorks film to receive over 90% of its reviews as positive, and the only one until How to Train Your Dragon. Roger Ebert praised the film, saying that it's "sharp and funny". The variety of themes, interesting visuals, and voice acting were each aspects of the film that were praised. Roger's partner, Gene Siskel also gave the film a positive review, ranking it No. 7 on his picks of the Best Films of 1998.

Box office

The film topped the box office in its opening weekend, earning $17,195,160 for a $7,021 average from 2,449 theatres.^[1] In its second weekend, the film held the top spot again, with a slippage of only 14% to $14.7 million for a $5,230 average and expanding to 2,813 sites. It held well also in its third weekend, slipping only 24% to $11.2 million and finishing in third place, for a $3,863 average from 2,903 theatres. The film's widest release was 2,929 theatres, and closed on February 18, 1999. The film altogether picked up $90,757,863 domestically, recouping its $60 million budget, but failing to outgross its competition with A Bug's Life. The film picked up an additional $81 million overseas for a worldwide total of $171.8 million, making it a box office success.

Awards and nominations

Video games

• Antz
• Antz Racing
• Antz Extreme Racing

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Antz

	United States portal
	Film portal
	Animation portal
	1990s portal

• Antz at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Antz at AllRovi
• Antz at the Internet Movie Database
• Antz at Rotten Tomatoes
• Antz at Metacritic
• Antz at Box Office Mojo
• Script