Bug's Life, A

     The story of a young misfit ant and how he recruits a group of other misfit bugs to defend his colony from a gang of evil grasshoppers. Lots of famous voices here, including Dave Foley as the main character, Flik, and Kevin Spacey as the leader of the bad guys. The story and characters are typical of Disney animated fare, but they're manipulated with skill. Despite its familiarity, A Bug's Life is fun and entertaining, with a lot of good jokes, and one or two really stand-out characters, such as Heimlich the caterpillar. And of course it's always interesting to be a witness to a big advance in film technology--here the filmmakers are showing off their virtuosity with computer animation, and the results are very impressive. In fact, for playfulness with this new technology and with the film medium in general, I found the short that precedes the movie, a little film called Geri's Game depicting an old man playing chess with himself, almost more entertaining than the feature itself. Directed by John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton.

Jim Genzano