Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Seeing an animated film in this early rough state is always fascinating, and it can provide a solid glimpse at the process that a studio goes through in trying to perfect one of these pictures. This OVER THE HEDGE screening was pretty early, so what did the people who got to see it think?
Hey Mori,
I love the site and have contributed before – I posted a Return of the King review way back. Anyway, today I got to see Over the Hedge here in Orange County. It was like other reviewers have said – lots of metal detectors, no cell phones, etc.
I didn’t know what to expect with this film; the trailer looks good and I loved the first Shrek film. I thought Shark Tale was pretty weak, didn’t see Madagascar after hearing it was terrible, and was disappointed in Shrek 2. But I love animation, especially of the computer variety. I am pleased to say that this film is a winner.
Now the film was by no means finished. Only about 30% of the film was completed as far as lighting and full animation. The rest was very rough color animation and about half of the film was storyboards.
But the parts that were finished were truly amazing! The animation was better than anything I’ve seen DreamWorks do thus far. The colors were brilliant and vibrant, and the backgrounds (trees, grass, etc.) were simply stunning. They were going for photo realism (on everything but the animals) and I think they pulled it off with flying colors. Actually, it made me mad when they switched to storyboards since I wanted to see the next beautifully drawn scene. The animals’ fur was unlike anything I’d seen before – much better than Shrek or Monsters Inc. Animation and technology-wise, this thing was awesome. Too bad I only got to see about 20 minutes of such.
The story is not totally original, but it’s fun and light and quick and is just fine for a movie like this. I don’t want to give away too much of what happens, but the initial scene is great and sets up the main characters and the central motivation for the story right away. I think that kids will get into the adventure/quest/mission aspect of the story and there are other underlying themes that adults will find interesting as well.
The characters and voice acting is top notch. Each character acts somewhat like you’d expect each animal to act – the squirrel is hyper, the turtle slow, thinking and methodical, etc. Each actor gives great performances, however – the standouts were Steve Carell as Hammy the ADD/hyper-kinetic squirrel and William Shatner as the blustery opossum. Shatner’s running joke of constantly playing dead got some big laughs. But Hammy is the one that people are going to love – he’s the one kids will want to buy the toys for, he’s the one who people will want to see more of in a sequel – he’s basically the Donkey. And he’s actually pretty darn funny. Bruce Willis is essentially the straight man, and I actually thought his performance was the least engaging. Gary Shandling as the turtle, and leader of the animal “family,” does an able job with his role – he’s got some funny moments but is the grounded character amid his family of funny misfits. I really loved hearing Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara as the porcupine couple – hearing those voices together makes any movie better (Mitch and Mickey anyone?). But they have relatively small roles, but have some funny lines. Wanda Sykes does herself, and it fits her skunk character nicely; she’ll be another fan favorite – some of the best sight/scatological gags are hers. Also, Nick Nolte as the menacing bear is simply outstanding – they could NOT have picked a better voice – he owns that freaking bear. You will love this bear. Awesome.
There are some truly exciting action and chase scenes that I found myself surprisingly in to. The last big action payoff on board a speeding semi involving the bear and each of the main characters should play fantastic in the final version – all we got to see was the storyboards, and it was even exciting then.
The songs by Ben Folds, which we were told at the start were “works in progress,” were actually quite good – they were of the same vibe as the songs used in the Shrek films. There were a few musical montages that were all storyboarded, but the songs were effective and catchy and fit well within the story.
I was also happy to see they did not borrow as heavily from pop culture as in the Shrek films. There are few very funny references to media and pop culture, one in particular involving a certain TV celebrity that got a HUGE laugh, but they were few and far between and I thought that was a good thing. So this played more like a Pixar film, more of a movie about its characters and its story then about winking at the audience with pop references to keep the adults engaged.
The film did not by any means break new ground (cute characters, chases, toilet humor, happy ending), and the ending was pretty abrupt and more heartwarming and saccharine than I would have liked to see; most of the group interviewed at the end had the same reaction. And the Bruce Willis character, RJ the raccoon is not all that interesting, he comes across as a little too Poochy from the Simpson’s, almost trying to hard to be hip. The film also takes place in quite a limited number of locations – basically the woods, the neighborhood backyards and one house. Needless to say, it wasn’t the same as the amazing and ever-changing locations in the Incredibles, Finding Nemo, or even the Shrek films.
But all in all, I think Steve and the DreamWorks guys have a hit. And this is coming from a guy who hasn’t really thought much of DreamWorks’ animation projects. It won’t be the phenomenon as Shrek 2, but I think audiences and critics will like it much better than Shark Tale and Madagascar. There are some big laughs, some really impressive animation (better than anything Fox or DreamWorks has done previously), good music, fun characters, and enough action, humor, suspense and solid character moments to keep both kids and adults happy. Even the teenagers in the discussion group at the end liked it. It ain’t quite Pixar, but what is in that genre? So with this and Cars, audiences have some quality animated fare to choose from next year.
If you use this, call me Snoofy Johnson.
Ben Folds wrote the songs? That’s news. Anyway... this looked like one of the good ones when I got an early peek at it during a Dreamworks visit a year ago, and it’s nice to hear that it’s coming together.
"Moriarty" out.
