Coming hot on the heels of Toy Story, A Bug's Life now feels a bit pedestrian. Its concept isn't as gleefully novel nor is its story as maturely developed as the game-changer that preceded it, while the films that followed were much more ambitious. Excuse the growing pains of a studio still working to define itself, and a plucky upstart trying to upstage them (Antz, released a couple of months before, was explicitly created to steal the film's thunder), however, and A Bug's Life shows that unwavering commitment to a great idea will invariably lead to a great movie. There's something simple yet genius about the approach to a bug's eye view on the world. Only in the intro and outro does the shooting angle move away from a bug's eye view, framing everyday minutiae as major obstacles; rain drops fall like bombs and cracks in dried earth are deadly gorges. There's elements of fantastical embellishment - a flea-led circus - but they're so joyful and accurate in their observations that it never feels silly. And then you have Hopper. The film is populated with all manner of humorous bugs with their own eccentricities, but Kevin Spacey's dictator grasshopper overshadows them all; a charismatic, purposeful public speaker with an uncanny knack for persuasion, yet with a crippling fear of birds. Every scene he (or any of his cronies) appear in are filled with real tension, making the power-of-the-many finale (which makes perfect sense within ant logic) all the more satisfying.
