A Bug's Life

Name: A Bug's Life
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Animation, Family
Released: November 25, 1998
Duration: 95 min
Rating: 77
Cast: Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey

1998

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 402 Ratings

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7.8

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7.8	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 402 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Buena Vista Pictures | Release Date: November 25, 1998 | G

Starring: Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey

Summary: The story of an ant named Flik who is searching for better ways to be a bug.

Director: Andrew Stanton and John Lasseter

Genre(s): Adventure, Comedy, Animation, Family

Rating: G

Runtime: 95 min

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Metascore

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

100

Richard Corliss

At the end, the movie tops itself with comic outtakes, undoubtedly the funniest finale of any cartoon feature. “Antz” may have amused viewers with its sidewise wit, but as a comprehensive vision of computerized moviemaking, Pixar's dream works. And when A Bug's Life hits its stride, it's antastic. Read full review

100

Janelle Brown

It's impossible not to be utterly blown away by Pixar's animation. Read full review

100

Dallas Observer Michael Sragow

Lasseter and Stanton and the rest of the animators and gagsmiths use the computer with staggering imaginative freedom. Read full review

Roger Ebert

The story, about an ant colony that frees itself from slavery to grasshoppers, is similar in some ways to the autumn's other big animated release, "Antz," but it's aimed at a broader audience and lacks the in-jokes. Read full review

Russell Smith

From the pure entertainment standpoint, ABL's nonstop action helps it avoid the slack moments that marred “Antz”. The dialogue, kiddie-accessible though it is, is plenty intelligent for adult enjoyment. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

So obsessed with wowing you, in every corner of every frame, that as a movie it doesn't quite breathe. Read full review

Manohla Dargis

The most pleasure to be had from this high-tech bore is to compare the Disney world-view evidenced here (the triumph of collectivism) with that of DreamWorks’ own creepy-crawler animation, “Antz” (the triumph of individualism). Read full review

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User Reviews

gm101

Apr 7, 2011

Excellent movie by Pixar that introduced many children to Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai," in an animated, yet brilliant way. Amazing cast of voice actors as well!

6 of 6 users found this helpful60

viktorg.

Nov 30, 2009

It´s for me the best of the pixar´s movies! It´s very funny and witty!!!

0 of 0 users found this helpful

jeff_reviews

Jul 4, 2013

"A Bug's Life" holds a powerful message, and does it quite well, but maybe doesn't hold the highest level of storytelling. Still, with great visuals, puns, laughs, and detailed characters, "A Bug's Life" is able to score.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

joao1198pedro

Oct 31, 2013

i don't know why people hate too much this film,it's a great movie and it have a lot of good and interesting characters wich i grow up seeing then and i enjoyed a lot.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

bfoore90

May 9, 2020

This is definitely one of Pixar's lesser films, which isn't to say that it's bad. It's a good movie.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

MovieManiac1994

Jan 4, 2016

A Bug's Life had the misfortune of having to follow two tough acts. As the second effort from John Lasseter's Pixar outfit, it had to live in the shadow of the highly successful Toy Story, and as the second CGI insect fable to hit the screens in 1998, it inevitably offered up characters andA Bug's Life had the misfortune of having to follow two tough acts. As the second effort from John Lasseter's Pixar outfit, it had to live in the shadow of the highly successful Toy Story, and as the second CGI insect fable to hit the screens in 1998, it inevitably offered up characters and scenes very like those you saw in Antz.

However Antz, produced by ex-Disney top man Jeffrey Katzenberg's DreamWorks, aspired to a certain level of adult sophistication which is matched in A Bug's Life only in a wittily animated skit on those end credits sequences that include outtakes from the movie. As a proper Disney production, A Bug's Life instead goes all out for kid-friendliness with a lot of slapstick (including a literal gag where a stick insect gets slapped), a simple goodies versus baddies, underdog-comes-through storyline and a batch of appealing, comical characters.

As in Antz, the setting is an anthill where a foul-up misfit has a crush on the princess, but the plot here is more clear-cut, poaching the set-up from The Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven as crossed with the fable of The Grasshopper And The Ant. An isolated ant colony strives all season to assemble an offering of food for a roving band of tyrannical grasshoppers under the leadership of the glowering Hopper (voiced by Spacey). Flik (Foley, a stalwart of ace Canadian comedy troupe Kids In The Hall), an ant dreamer whose inventions never quite work, sets out to save the day by recruiting a band of warrior insects from a nearby bug city. He gets his antennae crossed and hires instead a broken-down flea circus who have to save the day using their performance skills.

Adults might experience a certain degree of impatience with the highly-guessable storyline, which is disappointingly straightforward after the multi-level cleverness of Pixar's other efforts, but children will respond not only to the bug-level knockabout but to the broad-strokes, loveable characters: a fat caterpillar who yearns to transform into "a beautiful butterfly", a pair of chortling Hungarian pillbug acrobats (both voiced by Michael McShane), the gentle-hearted but fearsome looking rhino-nosed beetle (Brad Garrett), a male ladybug (Denis Leary) who resents being taken for a girl, and the cowardly rantings of David Hyde Pierce's stick insect.

If Flik isn't quite up to the Woody Allen character in Antz, Julia Louis-Dreyfus' neurotic, hyperactive ant princess is more interesting than Sharon Stone's take on the same part. A Bug's Life is not quite as all-round great as Toy Story, or Finding Nemo, or The Incredibles, but in offering a lot of charm and imagination, some scary moments (the vertical take-off 'hoppers), excellent animated action and plenty of comedy, it ensures that it's still light years ahead of most live-action comedy output. And it saves its one Randy Newman song for the end so you don't have the action hobbled by musical numbers the way traditional Disney 'toons have been in the last ten years. It's just a shame that, set against the rest of the Pixar output, it offers nothing new.

Though not as deep, philosophical or vocally star-studded as Antz, Pixar's insect nation is every bit as eye-popping, and kids who don't love it are very likely to become zealous members of some future Trenchcoat Mafia.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

PhillipT.

Aug 18, 2006

This film fales as a childrens strory and dissapoints adults as a sweet comedy. It comes together as a hardly descent picture with bad acting and an annoying plot.

1 of 3 users found this helpful

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16	#16 Best Movie of 1998
6	#6 Most Discussed Movie of 1998
19	#19 Most Shared Movie of 1998