Over the Hedge (19 May 2006)
directed by Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick
starring Bruce Willis, Gary Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte, Thomas Haden Church, Allison Janney, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Avril Lavigne, Omid Djalili, Sami Kirkpatrick, Shane Baumel, Madison Davenport, Brian Stepanek, Paul Butcher
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MPAA rating: Studio: DreamWorks SKG Script: Len Blum, Lorne Cameron, David Hoselton, Karey Kirkpatrick Music: Rupert Gregson-Williams, Ben Folds Running time: 83 minutes Tags: Animation; Comdey; exterminators; Family Film; squirrels; turtles Tactical strength: [5/10]
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for some rude humor and mild comic action
Over the Hedge adapts the popular comic strip of the same name for the big screen. The voice cast clearly has fun enacting their roles, but the thin storyline doesn't really give us much food for thought, even with the moral lessons crammed into the plot.
RJ the raccoon (voice by Bruce Willis) steals and destroys a hibernating black bear's winter food stash, but accidentally wakes up the bear. Vincent the bear (voice by Nick Nolte) catches RJ in the act and gives RJ an ultimatum: replace the food in a week or die. Luckily, RJ happens on a "family" of hibernating creatures just waking up. The overly cautious family leader, Verne the turtle (Gary Shandling), doesn't waste a minute, and he starts directing the other animals in his group to start collecting food for the next winter. (Ok, so turtles don't hibernate, but that's what happens here.) The animals discover that during their long winter's nap, the humans have developed a huge tract of homes in the forest and separated the homes from the trees with a large hedge. RJ introduces Verne and the others to the wonders of human food, with the ulterior motive of using the group to collect all the items he needs for Vincent. The humans decide they don't like having their new homes invaded by the former residents of the forest, and Gladys (Allison Janney) head of homeowners association hires an exterminator.
Over the Hedge has some really funny bits, and the rest of the voice cast (Wanda Sykes, Steve Carell, William Shatner, Avril Lavigne, Eugene Levy, and Catherine O'Hara) do a great job at creating not just an animated character, but an entire personality with just a limited amount of screen time available with so many characters. Unfortunately, the writers decided we needed to have several moral lessons embedded in the plot, and these lessons conflict with the actions of the characters. As overtly positive messages, we have the importance of family with minor subtexts of environmentalism and consequences of urban sprawl. For example, the animals look at a shiny, new SUV and ask, "How many people does it hold?" RJ replies matter-of-factly, "Usually one." While these messages might only bother me slightly in their preachy nature, the animals' behavior advocates robbery and vandalism without consequence. The animals don't just steal leftover food from the garbage cans. They wage an all-out, planned attack on the contents of the home. The vandalism goes unpunished and even gets justified as revenge against the audacity of the human to not want vermin wandering around her yard and garbage.
On the surface, Over the Hedge gives a visually appealing presentation that easily ranks on the same level with other recent animated features, but the preachy moral messages in conflict with advocating robbery and vandalism lessen the enjoyment of the already thin plot.
