29. Antz
This is an incredibly mature movie. I feel like I’ve watched this film at three different stages of my life. When I was a kid, everything in here was scary and harsh but in a way that felt like a challenge I could actually overcome by watching it. The charm seeped through well enough, even back then. My re-watch of it a few years ago reminded me of how good a film it was but my watching it recently for the purposes of this list surprised me once more. It actually impressed me just how much I missed yet again.
The film felt shorter than the other times I watched it as a result. It’s probably due to me getting older but the battle against the termites scene happened a lot earlier than I recall it happening. However, it needed to because what happens there sets in motion the entire plot. It’s basically the final straw for our main character Z.
Yes, the main character’s name is Z, which is amusing to me because the title of the movie is Antz.
The Z at the end is tilted a little bit in the poster, making it so that it’s possible to read the film’s name as "Ant Z". Clever, if that was the intention.
Z (voiced by Woody Allen) is an ant who lives in a colony of ants where they are assigned what role they are supposed to play at birth. There’s literally a scene showing larvae being placed onto a table and, one after the other, back and forth, like clockwork, the larvae are given the title of “worker” or “soldier” and immediately handed a helmet or a pickaxe depending on what job they were given. The person designating these roles to them does this back and forth in a manner that suggests he’s pretending to be giving it any kind of actual thought when in reality, he’s deciding the social class arbitrarily.
Z is one of those lanky do-gooders who is a bit skittish and a little nerdy on the surface but the thing that really impresses me about him as a character is how he doesn’t really act like it. I mean, he DOES act like he’s nervous and scared all the time but every single time he has an idea in his head that goes against the perceived notion of what his society is telling him he should be doing, he just goes ahead and does it with almost no hesitation. He’s still clearly worried about doing it but he still does it and because his actions speak louder than any of his skittish words it tends to rally people to his side. People LIKE Z and if they don’t know him, when they meet him, they usually tend to take a liking to him extremely quickly and it doesn’t feel weird or off at all.
Normally, this kind of character would be played up as the outcast by way of making everyone hate them but no. Z has friends, a male soldier ant named Weaver (voiced by Sylvester Stallone) and a female, fellow worker ant named Azteca (voiced by Jennifer Lopez) and despite how different Z is from them when it comes to questioning his place in the world and the significance he wants to have as an individual, they aren’t combative with him but comforting.
A wonderful tidbit is how these two, Z and Weaver, were born two seconds after each other yet one is a worker and the other is a soldier. The film doesn’t say why they have different occupations because it literally just showed us earlier that the assembly line of babies just assigns workers and soldiers one after the other, back and forth. Whichever ant was born after the other would have the opposite job as a result.
While this film does admittedly wear it’s message on its sleeve it does so unapologetically and says what it has to say in a powerfully visceral manner when it has to. It does not hold back. When someone needs to die to make a point this movie will kill them off and it will be unfair and gruesome but it will damn sure make sure the point is driven home. It’ll also manage to do it without being SO big of a downer that it can’t recover from it.
There’s a very likable soldier ant named Barbatus (Danny Glover) in this film that we get to know very little of but becomes, in the short time we know him, one of the most endearing characters in the film. When Z, who at this point in the film has decided to switch places with his soldier ant buddy Weaver so that he can have a second chance meeting with Princess Bala (Sharon Stone) he meets Barbatus and the two of them hit it off really well. He isn’t put off or annoyed by Z at all despite how harsh some of the other ants around him appear to be. He’s very protective and keeps his promise to ensure Z is safe by saving his life at one point too.
This, of course, ends in tragedy in a scene that’s still kind of shocking in how it managed to portray war and what it does to poor Barbatus. The message Z is left with at the end of that conflict is to not do what Barbatus did and follow orders his entire life or else you’ll choke on your last dying breath having marched to your death for the sake of this perceived notion of togetherness when in reality it’s just in service of a system that doesn’t care about you, if it even knows you exist.
This is where we get to the villain of the piece, General Mandible (Gene Hackman). The film’s message and core plot is wrapped around this nasty, broad chested bastard’s finger. He’s a war mongering army man who’s vision for “the colony” only includes what it means to him. The subtle manipulation he imposes throughout the film to get what he wants is pretty incredible. His right hand man, Colonel Cutter (Christopher Walken) is the strong, stout and intimidating second in command but he’s also got a better head on his shoulders than Mandible. Each continuous action of bitter greed that Mandible does gets to Cutter in a way that sees him becoming more and more disillusioned with the man until he turns on him at the end.
When Mandible tricks the queen into sending all the soldiers that are the most loyal to her towards their deaths in a fight against the termites (something she’s confused by due to them being peaceful with the ants for a long time) it’s clear it’s being done with the explicit purpose of making sure all of them die so that it’ll be easier to control the narrative and have more general loyalty focused on him. That’s why Z coming back from the battle alive irks him so much.
There’s a really good, subtle scene where they interrogate Weaver and get the idea that Z might be headed to Insectopia out of him. Insectopia is said to be a paradise for ants, a place where people can be free from oppression and the assigned roles and labor they’re forced to do everyday. None of the other ants think it’s real and it’s only mentioned initially by a really drunk old soldier ant that is made to look like he might be crazy to the other ants.
When they hear Insectopia brought up as a suggestion of where Z might be headed, Cutter initially says that it’s a fantasy and General Mandible cuts in to nonchalantly say that no, it exists and that he’ll give him the coordinates later.
After he says that, we get a brief shot of Cutter giving the general a look. It’s a small look of realization. It’s the realization that a paradise for ants that don’t want to be a part of the system actually does exist out there and the man at the top who stands in charge KNOWS about it but keeps it a secret, knowingly making sure all those underneath him stand in line. When the ants rally for individuality and decide to rise up based on Z’s example, he puts them down with a well given speech about how if the masses just keep working, they’ll reap the rewards in the end.
It’s what every oppressive head at the top says. If people get it in their heads that they can ask WHY they need to follow orders for a reason that is NEVER elaborated on then just promise them a reward and they’ll fall back in line. The masses are fickle and weak after all. Even when he has no use for them, instead of telling them where Insectopia is and letting them leave, he’d rather hatch a scheme to drown them and the queen.
He keeps parroting the line “for the colony” over and over again to an almost cartoonish degree but it drives the stake in further just how much of an emotional crutch it is when he uses it against the people working under him. It’s a line that tells you that you’re selfish for wanting to live for yourself and that if you don’t work, you’re dooming the others around you. It’s complete bullshit and it’s proven as such by the end when it comes down to the wire and he openly shouts “I AM the colony” at Z when he goes to push him to his death. This action ultimately leads him to his death instead, shortly after Cutter betrays him.
There’s also the fact that this film is way grittier and more adult than most animated films of today. This was back during a time where it was easier for animation to be viewed as something adults could enjoy without it being a massive crusade. As such, you have lines like “I was gonna let you be a part of my most erotic fantasies but you can forget about that now” and “I have a thing against drinking from the anus of another creature” just sprinkled in there. People get drunk, people get fried to death, people get beheaded… this isn’t a kids movie. It’s an animated film for all ages. That’s for damn sure.
I had a lot to say about this film because the nuances behind what it was doing and what it had to say impressed me a lot. It’s a film that lives and dies by its message of course. Its characters are likable and I do like how, despite them all being ants, it’s easy to tell them apart thanks to their designs. The quant nature of the grit of this film stands the test of time to me despite how dated the animation no doubt is. I wouldn’t say it looks bad though.
It's placement here is honestly just because the films above it just do what they're trying to do better. That's to be expected since this was literally their first film but man what a first film.
Yeah, honestly, this is just a really solid movie. I was charmed by it.
