August 1999

A Bug's Life
Reviewed by Roger Kanno
DVD Format

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Picture Quality:
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Starring the voices of Dave Foley, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kevin Spacey

Directed by John Lasseter

Theatrical Release: 1998
DVD Release: 1999
Dolby Digital 5.1
Widescreen/Full Screen

A Bug's Life is the second feature-length animated film from the collaboration of Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. The first of these was Toy Story, which was released in 1995 and featured ground-breaking computer animation and the inspired vocal characterizations of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. While A Bug's Life does not quite have the originality or charm of Toy Story, it is still an enjoyable film with animation that is simply breathtaking.

The plot is vaguely reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Seven Samurai. A bumbling ant named Flik, from a colony being terrorized by grasshoppers, is sent to seek out warrior bugs to battle their oppressors. What Flik finds is a troupe of circus performers whom he mistakenly believes to be warriors, and he returns to the colony with them. The circus bugs along with Flik devise a plan to thwart the grasshoppers, who are led by the evil and ruthless Hopper. Although the story is somewhat simplistic, the film has a certain charm and innocence that are appealing and that are also the trademarks of all good Disney animated films.

The voice of Flik is provided by Dave Foley of television's News Radio, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, formerly of Seinfeld, provides the voice of Princess Atta. The remainder of the cast includes the vocal talents of Kevin Spacey, Phyllis Diller, David Hyde Pierce, John Ratzenberger, Denis Leary, and many others. The entire cast works well together, but look for Ratzenberger as P.T. Flea, who is performed and animated in a wonderfully over-the-top fashion.

The animation is the true star of this film, however. Pixar has again provided state-of-the-art computer animation to a film that truly brings it to life. The amazing lighting effects provide realistic shadows for even the most minute objects and give the film an eerily lifelike, three-dimensional effect. The detail in the grasshoppers' bodies and the articulation in their faces is unbelievably complex, and even background objects such as individual blades of grass and pebbles are perfectly and painstakingly rendered. The video for A Bug's Life was actually transferred directly from the digital computer-animation files, thus bypassing any film elements that could introduce flaws such as scratches and dust to the transfer. The picture quality of the resulting DVD is excellent. Unfortunately, the widescreen version of the film is not anamorphically enhanced, so widescreen televisions cannot take full advantage of the DVD medium’s maximum resolution. Interestingly, each shot of the full-frame version was recomposed and rendered from the original computer-animation files so that no visual information was lost, as is normally the case with traditional pan-and-scan versions of films. Credit Pixar for providing this unique recomposed version for standard televisions, but blame Buena Vista for not anamorphically enhancing the widescreen version of this film on DVD.

The soundtrack features Gary Rydstrom’s excellent sound design and yet another musical score by Randy Newman. Although the music is used sparingly throughout the film, it is well recorded and effective. Surround envelopment is good, with foley effects such as wind and crickets providing an expansive soundstage that extends in all directions. Bass extension is occasionally very deep and recorded at high levels that serve to heighten the dramatic impact of the soundtrack.

The only extras provided on this disc are both versions of the end-credit outtakes, which were shown theatrically, and the animated short Geri's Game from Pixar. The outtakes are often hilarious, but the lack of extras and the non-anamorphic widescreen transfer are disappointing. Although this DVD may be lacking in extras, the film itself is very entertaining, and the exceptional video and audio quality make it one of only a few select discs that can be considered reference material.

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