It’s a weird experience revisiting a movie as an adult that you’ve seen over and over as a kid. It’s great when they age gracefully, and it’s unfortunate when they age like a gallon of milk that you left in the trunk of your car on a hot day (have fun with that sensory overload in your head). I recently rewatched Antz and was expecting it to go in either direction, since I remember watching it a bunch on VHS and enjoying it (Does anyone else remember the Prince of Egypt trailer that preceded it? Just me? Alright.)
Still, I was curious if it would be too childish or be great for any age. Rewatching it now, I was baffled by how not only is it really entertaining as an adult, but also…I don’t think it’s really a “children’s movie”.
Most kids’ movies have a certain edge to them or include sneaky jokes that are for the adults, which kids won’t catch until they’re older. Or, occasionally, there's a certain subtext or theme that would go over kids’ heads. That’s not what I’m talking about here.
Antz feels like an animated adventure film that kids CAN watch, but it’s not necessarily geared solely with them in mind. I know there was a famous controversy between this and A Bug’s Life for having an ant-focused story, but it feels more in line tonally to something like Atlantis: The Lost Empire or Fantastic Mr. Fox. Kids will enjoy the animation, but the character drama, humor, and themes will be more resonant with adults. You can see that with the character Z.
Antz is a Woody Allen movie
This was the first Woody Allen movie I’ve ever seen, and, yes, I do consider this a “Woody Allen” movie. It’s not just that he’s in the lead role; it’s that a lot of the mannerisms and neurotic traits of his on-screen persona blend into the character of Z seamlessly. If Z had the horn-rimmed glasses and ability to break the fourth wall like Allen is known for, this movie would win so many bonus points with me.
Admittedly, I’m not a Woody Allen expert, and his movies are very hit and miss for me. I’ve often said that High Fidelity is my favorite Woody Allen movie and depending on who I say that to, no one gets the joke. Well, it’s not really a joke, so much as it’s a stylistic observation (keep it down, I know it’s paying homage to Alfie starring Michael Caine). I do like the archetypal character that weaves throughout most of his movies, though, and even when the movies don’t work for me, he’s consistently one of the best parts of those movies, even if some of the jokes and scenarios don’t age well.
Anyway, Z’s personality of feeling lost in the shuffle of his society and feeling insignificant isn’t a totally outlandish trope for a kids’ film. Lots of them have the wish-fulfillment fantasy of a character who’s down on their luck, who then becomes the hero by the end. The foundation of the Young Adult novel genre (and obviously "The Hero’s Journey") is practically built on that basic premise, but Z feels different in that he’s a grown adult, not a kid or teenager, and he’s essentially going through a midlife crisis.
He’s a lonely individual who lacks direction in life and only has his job and a few friends. His introductory scene is him talking to a therapist about his problems, which, considering the weird stigma surrounding therapy in the '90s—The original Santa Clause movie comes to mind with how especially ruthless it is—that feels unique for a children’s film.
Speaking of late '90s trends, his arc aligns with the decade's trend of a protagonist in a middling job who wants more out of life. Movies like Fight Club, American Beauty, Office Space, and The Matrix. It was a glass-shattering moment when I realized all of those movies came out in 1999. Since Antz was released in 1998, you could say it technically did the trope first. (I know the Fight Club novel was published in 1996, but just let me have this.)
An unusual villain for a kids' movie
To contrast Z, the main antagonist, General Mandible, is also somewhat out of the norm for an animated villain. Usually, animated villains, especially in Disney movies, serve as the comic foil to the hero. They’re either funny (like Hades in Hercules) or so charismatically evil that it makes them fun to hate (like Jafar in Aladdin). The General isn’t either of those things, and his plan is surprisingly dark. He wants to perform genocide and wipe out the majority of the ant colony. Sort of a "Survival of the Fittest" mentality.
He’s also played by Gene Hackman, who, I don’t think anyone told him he was the villain of a children’s movie, because he’s playing it like he’s still in Crimson Tide. Another way to put it is that his performance is much like Gary Oldman at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Dead Sirius.
He's an aspect of the movie that really stands out, because all of the dialogue that surrounds him is battle-planning and political scheming. Z gets wrapped up in a battle against the termites, because the squadrons are cannon fodder since they're loyal to the Queen and the General doesn't want to face any opposition when he executes his plan. You know, the things that kids love in their fun animated bug movies. Almost as much as they enjoy parallels to the Vietnam war and the hippie movement (I don't know if that was intentional, but the ants do protest at a point while singing a play on "Give Peace a Chance," so I don't feel like that's much of a stretch).
Even the General's death scene is hardcore. Like a lot of Disney movies, he falls to his death in an act that’s of his own doing, and it leaves the hero ethically unharmed in the eyes of the audience. The big difference is that you see him land! And wow, the sound of the thud will make you have a similar reaction to King Arthur seeing a knight beheaded by the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog (if you know, you know). You even see his dead body lying there in a following shot, which happens an awful lot in this, since this movie is significantly more intense than its PG rating would suggest.
The battle with the termites that I mentioned earlier isn’t a quirky, light-hearted action scene. If anything, it becomes an animated war film for a couple minutes. The termites are big and intimidating, and you see ants die in horrific ways. They even show the aftermath with the ants’ corpses littered across the battlefield, and Z has to comfort his new friend Barbatus (more specifically, his disembodied head), voiced by everyone's favorite Danny Glover, as he’s dying, and imparts the wisdom not to make the same mistake of following orders his whole life and to think for himself…in case you don't know, this is all brought to you by the studio that brought you Shrek 2.
More mature vibes than you'd expect to see
The film’s overall vibe is significantly more mature than you would expect. The jokes aren’t overly goofy or pandering to little kids, and you could make the argument that there aren’t even really jokes. Just dry sarcastic banter, mainly from Z. Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin show up and are almost unrecognizable as the voices of the wasps, Chip and Muffy, and more on that, kids aren’t going to get the joke that the wasps are literally pretentious W.A.S.P.s. Their scenes aren’t laugh-out-loud funny, but the fact that the filmmakers were able to incorporate that concept is amazing.
There’s also drinking involved, which is hilarious because it not only appears in the movie, but it also occurs during relevant scenes and plot points. John Mahoney shows up for one scene as a drunken, PTSD-riddled soldier (replete with stubble) who tells Z about Insectopia. And yes, they do use the words “post-traumatic stress disorder” and “drunken” to describe him. They don't play it up like a comic moment, he's portrayed as legitimately unhinged.
You can’t forget that this movie came out in the ‘90s, so even in an animated kids’ movie, the characters are all super horny. Z’s infatuation with Princess Bala isn't just “love at first sight” but literal physical attraction. He calls himself a “sensual worker,” and when they start bickering at each other later on, he informs her, “I was gonna let you become part of my most erotic fantasies.” That sounds like a line directly out of Annie Hall, not a movie that would forever be entangled with a Pixar movie with a similar premise, and that's what makes it more interesting.
The best way I can describe Antz is that it has an attitude that brings up mature themes and concepts, which, by modern standards, might be too much for little kids (or, more likely, their parents). However, it has a trust that those kids can handle it. I didn’t even mention that Z's friend Weaver gets tortured or the surprising amount of swearing in this. The funniest line, by a mile, is when Z and Princess Bala are stuck on the bottom of a shoe and the appearance of a penny to scrape them off makes him yell out, “Who the hell is that?”
It’s like the filmmakers already knew that they would lure in the kids—there are better ways to phrase that, but we’re too far in now—with cool animation and fun action scenes, so they made the story and characters more identifiable with adults. I remember growing up and watching this and having no idea why the General was doing his evil plan, but recognizing that he was big and had a scary voice, so he was the bad guy, and Z was small and goofy and on the poster, so he was the good guy, and that’s all I needed to know.
Revisiting it as an adult, it’s actually gotten better, and a lot of the themes resonate more deeply. Maybe it’s because this was DreamWorks’ first animated film, and they were coming out of the gate trying to distinguish themselves from Disney and Pixar, but this seemed to set the precedent for their earlier films. Movies like The Prince of Egypt, Chicken Run, and Shrek, which had broad enough appeal for kids but weren’t afraid to have a comic and thematic edge that clicked with adults. The result made the movies appeal to everyone and helped DreamWorks stake their claim as the other animated juggernaut in Hollywood.
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