Over the Hedge

I had the chance to catch up on my animation movie watching and saw Over the Hedge over the weekend. Featuring the voices of Bruce Willis, Gary Shandling, Steve Carell, Avril Lavigne (yes, I raised an eyebrow too), Eugune Levy and Thomas Haden Sandman Church this was a cute story about a raccoon enlisting help from some forest foragers to gather up food from their newly discovered human neighbours to stop a bear from eating the said raccoon. That is about it for the storyline but this was a positive for me. It was straight to the point and you were almost swept away by the movie as it guides you through this one plot line at a great speed. By the time the movie had ended I was suprised 80 minutes had gone by. I thought the casting and voices were excellent and really brought the chracters to life along with some excellent animation and chase sequences. Appealing to both adults and children and hopefully the latter (and the former) will pick up upon the underlying message about destroying animals native habitats and it's consequences. And there is also a significant, unsubtle jab in there about eating lots of junk food. All-in-all very enjoyable. I hadn't heard much about this film and so it came as a welcome suprise.

Rating: 7/10

Comments: If choosing between this and Open Season, see this. If you haven't ever seen an animated movie see Toy Story to see how it's done. Monsters Inc. was great too. See them. Then see Chicken little for another little recent gem....