Tuesday Movie Review: A Bug's Life

Welcome to a new blog series titled Tuesday Movie Review! In this series, we will take a look at a different Disney movie every week and examine some aspects of it including storyline, soundtrack/score, and acting! We'll also take a look at how each movie is brought to life at the Walt Disney World theme parks! I hope you enjoy this series as much as I enjoy writing it for you!

This week's feature film is Disney Pixar's A Bug's Life!

disneymovies.com

Released November 14th, 1998, A Bug's Life is the second Pixar movie made (behind Toy Story) and was also directed by Toy Story director, John Lasseter. The film itself is a story following our friend, Flik, a regular ant living in a huge ant colony that is terrorized by the local grasshopper bullies. Flik is also looking to impress the incoming queen ant, Princess Atta. Along the way, Flik runs into a group of rag tag bug's from the circus who he recruits to help him "fight off" the incoming grasshoppers. The only thing is that Flik is a perpetual mess up waiting to happen, and as the story progresses, we see Flik have to lie to cover up his mistakes, resulting in his banishment. Flik, and the circus bug's, leave the colony before the grasshoppers arrive, but thanks to the upcoming princess, Dot, Flik and the crew return to confront Hopper and the other grasshoppers. It's here that we get the moral of the story: no matter how small you are, you can make a difference.

Randy Newman, Pixar's residential composer, composed the score for A Bug's Life and it became an instant hit. Newman also conducted the score, along with writing, singing, and producing a single for the film's soundtrack "The Time of Your Life". Personally, I really like the soundtrack for A Bug's Life, I think it is similar to the Toy Story soundtrack, but it has some originality as well. One of my favorite scores from the film is the "Grasshopper's Return" score because of how dark it is and it instantly brings you back to an eventful part of the movie, something I think all good scores should do. I also love Newman's "The Time of Your Life" because it really does tell the story of the whole movie in one song and Newman delivers with some great work on the microphone. Newman received an Oscar nomination for Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score, and received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score-Motion Picture. He also won the 2000 Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture. 

Randy Newman, allmusic.com

The cast of A Bug's Life is a prominent one today, but at the time, wasn't very well known. Dave Foley played Flik in what was his first prominent acting job. Kevin Spacey voiced the villain Hopper and he brought some film experience to the group. Other notables are Hayden Panettiere as Dot, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Princess Atta, Joe Ranft as Heimlich, Dennis Leary as Francis, and Phyllis Diller as the Queen. See what I mean when I said not a very well known cast? However, they came together and delivered a spectacular performance that is often overlooked in the animated films category.

The film itself, outside of Newman's nominations for score, was nominated for 15 different awards including the BAFTA for Best Achievement in Special Effects, the Critic's Choice Award for Best Family Film and Best Animated Film (both of which it won), and the Kid's Choice Award for Favorite Movie. Personally, I loved A Bug's Life and still do to this day. It's funny, has a great message, and is actually very entertaining. Lasseter made Flik's character very relatable to a 5 year watching this movie for the first time and also to a 22 year old watching this movie for the 20th time by giving him real life failures that we could all go through and then having him team up with his friends to take the villain when all hope seemed gone. I also think John Lasseter did an exceptional job with Hopper's character, and to be honest, Hopper is the reason I am terrified of grasshoppers and crickets (who are basically the night version of grasshoppers).

A Bug's Life actually has a very interesting story regarding it's representation in the Walt Disney World theme parks. In mid 1998, Disney CEO Michael Eisner found himself with a predicament regarding an attraction inside the new Tree of Life at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Imagineers wanted to have a show involving all the different animals on the iconic tree, however Eisner thought it would be a better idea to incorporate a movie into the show. He knew that later that year, A Bug's Life would be released in theaters around the world and thought it would be another hit by Pixar. So, in an unprecedented move, Eisner and the Imagineers opened It's Tough to Be A Bug before the movie it was based on even hit theaters. The show itself was a hit introducing the characters Flik and Hopper in amazing Audio-Animatronics while utilizing some eye-popping 3-D visuals and a catchy song thrown in there as well! Shortly after the film released, the characters Flik, Princess Atta, and Princess Dot could be spotted doing special meet and greets around Disney's Animal Kingdom. Today, Princess Atta and Princess Dot are only brought out for special occasions, while Flik can be seen pretty much everyday doing his regular meet and greet!

It's Tough To Be A Bug, disneyparksblog

All things taken into consideration, I give A Bug's Life 3.5 of 5 stars. Why 3.5 if it was so good? Well, because Disney movies are extraordinarily hard to judge against each other and whenever I thought of giving it 4 or 5, I thought of other movies that are more deserving of those stars. A Bug's Life is a great movie, actually it's good enough to be my 2nd favorite Pixar movie, but there are some that are just a bit better. Nonetheless, I strongly encourage you to visit your local Target or Wal-Mart and pick up a copy of this if you haven't seen it yet, as it is a great movie.

Kevin Scott is a contributing writer for The Mouse Knows Best Podcast. He is self proclaimed Disney addict and oftentimes annoys his family with how much he talks Disney. He enjoys walking around all Disney Parks and taking as many pictures as he can in one day. When he isn't at Walt Disney World, he is working to get back or re-watching Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars movie. His spirit animal is a mix between Simba and Kylo Ren with a dash of Tony Stark. You can find him on Twitter @doubleoh_kevin and on Instagram @waltdisneyduo.