Shane Life

I may be 29 years old, but I love to watch animated movies. As the genre has evolved, the movies have become more clever, more snarky, and more appropriate for adults. Over the Hedge is based on the very funny comic strip of the same name, created by Michael Fry and T Lewis. I’ve been reading Over the Hedge for a while now (I love how dashboard widgets can deliver my comics to my desktop!).

It centers around a group of animals whose natural habitat has been infringed upon by suburban sprawl. Instead of leaving and going to the woods, they follow the lead of RJ the Racoon and learn to love the creature comforts that we as humans take for granted.

I was really hesitant about the movie because it seemed to me that it would be difficult to recapture the magic of a comic strip (see: Garfield). It’s why they have never made Calvin & Hobbes (the greatest of all comic strips)…it would have been a travesty as a movie. In addition, the attachment of huge names like Bruce Willis, Steve Carell, and others made me hesitant that the magic of the comic might not translate to the big screen.

However, once I heard that Ben Folds had 5 new songs on the soundtrack, I was totally in. Saturay afternoon, we had a little outing with the Arnold family and we saw it before our awesome trip to PF Changs (Kung Pao Scallops…YUM!).

I think that all of us were pleasantly surprised with the movie. Sure, we got a lot of funny looks from the other movie-goers because we didn’t have kids with us, but I enjoyed the movie as much, if not more, than the kids. It is funny and clever and there is stuff there for adults as well as kids (think William Shatner as a Possum faking death and blurting out “Rosebud”…funny stuff). I heard that they had originally planned to have Jim Carrey as the voice of RJ the Racoon, but I was glad that they landed on Bruce Willis because I think his voice translates better as a cartoon than Carrey’s might have.

The voices were all very well cast. Allison Janney as the Homeowners Association President trying to stamp out the rodents who live over the hedge was perfect and Thomas Haden Church returned his Wings-roots, creating a very Lowell Mather-like interpretation of the Verminator. Even Avril Lavigne was not a distraction as the daughter possum and it was great for Eugene Levy and Catherine Ohara to have some non-mockumentary work as a family of porcupines.

I don’t know what it was about the movie, but it just made me happy. It was about a thousand times better than that big piece of crap Madagascar and it really proved that good writing is universal…talking animals can be endearing and funny as long as the writers create them that way. Credit should be given to Fry and Lewis because it was their original characters that provided the basis for the voice actors.

Overall, I thought it succeeded pretty well and it is a good family flick.