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Main Cast: Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hayden Panettiere, Phyllis Diller (I), Joe Ranft, Madeline Kahn, John Ratzenberger

When this movie was released, a furor erupted about it's chief rival, Antz. Both stories were about ants and it was thought that someone had stolen the idea from the other. However, while they are some similarities, they are slight at best. But more on that sort of stuff later. On with the review.

We begin with the typical Pixar short before the show. This one is a funny chess match with an old guy playing himself. It's kind of weird once it gets going, but it's still good stuff.

Next we get into the real show where a line of ants are taking food up to what looks like an altar. A leaf falls in their path and they panic. So a 'smart' ant comes down and directs them around it. This is funny, but dumb. Ants are not that stupid!

Soon thereafter, we meet Flik (Dave Foley) an inventor ant. He has invented a machine to harvest stuff with, but he's under-appreciated and looked down upon. He ends up throwing stalks (a feature of his machine) on Princess Atta (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) by mistake and gets in trouble. Finally, he also accidentally knocks the altar into the water and all the food is lost.

Which brings us to why the ants were doing running a bunch of food up a hill. It seems this is a take off of the old Aesop fable about the Ant and the Grasshopper. The grasshoppers come and take some of the food in exchange for protection from big bad bugs in this version. Of course, the "hoppers" never really DO keep 'bad bugs' away, but just pretend to. This is like the stereotypical gangs in movies that get money for "protection" purposes. The grasshopper's leader is Hopper (Kevin Spacey). He is very angry about the lack of food and tells them to double the amount that they usually give. And that they'll be back when the last leave falls from the tree that overlooks their home. 

Flik offers to go find warrior bugs to battle the grasshoppers and the Princess and her advisers agree to send him off (secretly they do this because they want to be rid of him). He ends up finding a bunch of circus dunces that he thinks are warriors and brings them back. The dunces think that Flik wants them to do their act.

Lot's of goofy stuff happens in the next few scenes. Suffice it to say, Flik and the "warriors" must do something. They want to leave. And they almost do so. However, another Princess follows them and gets into trouble. So they rescue her and cement their image as warriors. 

Flik ends up coming up with an idea to make a fake bird to scare Hopper and his gang off. All is well until the circus bugs' old boss shows up to take them back. Then everyone finds out that Flik is a liar and nobody's happy.

Well, we all know that there's a happy ending with the ants winning. So let's get to the lists!

The Good Stuff:

The Bad Stuff:

The Dumb Stuff:

A Bug's Life vs. Antz:

I personally think this is the best Pixar movie that I've seen. It's funny, even if it isn't original. It's definitely one to see. Just be warned that supporting Disney isn't necessarily a good thing.