A BUG'S LIFE (1998) **1/2 After centuries of humans assuming the attributes of insects, the bugs are finally trying to act like us. Which is, in some cases, an improvement, I think. Oh, sure, there are the Stalinist conformist not even yearning to be free, and the corporate fascist grasshoppers yearning only to exploit, but see, in the corners of the frame, the ragged individualist free circus troupe, and the lone genius, who can come from anywhere. I wouldn't be the first to find bugs fascinating, if I did, but I don't and so it's a pleasant surprise that the film is...ok, maybe not fascinating, but at least entertaining enough. Ants were not made to save grasshoppers, and whether the antidotal anecdote is psychedelic or shades of gray matters only in reference to the following epoch. I prefer purple, actually. I like the idea of Kevin Spacey, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Madeline Kahn, David Hyde Pierce, and Bonnie Hunt getting paid obscene amounts of money to sit around in a sound studio trying to figure out how insects would sound if they could talk human. It's worthwhile.
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