Sight and Sound
"...Tightly constructed....The script has fun playing with our common knowledge of insects..." 02/1999 p.39-40Entertainment Weekly
"...A hellzapoppin creature-feature jamboree..." -- Rating: B 01/15/1999 p.44 USA Today
"...Rowdier than a New Year's Eve party..."-- 4 out of 4 stars 12/24/1998 p.4D New York Times
"...A BUG'S LIFE makes jaunty, imaginative use of both extraordinary technology and bold storytelling possibilities within the insect world..." 11/25/1998 p.E1 Box Office
"...Lasseter brilliantly exploits the material for both laughs and pathos, while pushing the technological parameters of computer animation even beyond the already impressive feat of TOY STORY..." -- 4 out of 5 stars 01/01/1999 p.53 Los Angeles Times
"...[A BUG'S LIFE has] an unfettered imagination....This footloose humor comes from both the writing and the direction..." 11/20/1998 p.C1 Time Magazine 0 of 10
...In conspiratorial hindsight one might see A Bug's Life, the first feature from John Lasseter and his Pixar whizzes since their 1995 computer-generated hit Toy Story, as the company's rearview metaphor for its battle with DreamWorks' Antz. That similar computer-animated cartoon was conceived after the Pixar pic but released before it. It's bug-eat-bug in Hollywood's animation wars. Is there room for two? Yes, when the "second" movie is as rich and rewarding as A Bug's Life. Its design work is so stellar--a wide-screen Eden of leaves and labyrinths populated by dozens of ugly, buggy, cuddly cutups--that it makes the DreamWorks film seem, by comparison, like radio. If that movie was Ant-Z, this one is Ant-A... But as Walt Disney knew, animation is more than sublime trickery; the word means giving life. With a different kind of mouse, Lasseter does just that as his film finds its heat and heart. The plot matures handsomely; the characters neatly converge and combust; the gags pay off with emotional resonance. And at the end, the movie tops itself with comic outtakes, undoubtedly the funniest finale of any cartoon feature. Antz may have amused viewers with its sidewise wit, but as a comprehensive vision of computerized moviemaking, Pixar's dream works. And when A Bug's Life hits its stride, it's antastic. - Richard Corliss
Box Office Magazine 0 of 10
A handful of cursory similarities to Dreamorks' Antz notwithstanding, Disney's long-awaited A Bug's Life emerges as the clear winner of the computer-generated insect competition. Funnier, flashier, more colorful and imaginative, better animated and, most importantly, better written, this second collaboration from Disney and Bay Area-based animation studio Pixar is a festive delight sure to please adults and children of all ages. Like the first Disney/Pixar effort, Toy Story, A Bug's Life succeeds by creating a breathtakingly comprehensive world in miniature and imposing upon it a meticulously well-scripted concept... As he did with Toy Story, director John Lassiter brilliantly exploits the material for both laughs and pathos, while pushing the technological parameters of computer animation even beyond the already impressive feat of Toy Story. Similarities with Antz, of course, are certain to plague the film to a small degree: Both films deal with individualistic misfit ants whose courage in seeking the experience of the outside world enables them to save the colony and win the affections of the colony's princess (voiced here by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who in the process is able to ascend nobly to the throne of her mother, the Queen (Phyllis Diller). The particulars of the two films, however, are so radically different as to be beyond comparison. Whereas Antz centers on the political machinations of the ant colony, A Bug's Life casts a wider focus on the world of all insects--a wiser and more interesting choice. Minus Antz's occasionally raw humor, A Bug's Life is also better suited to family viewing, with its splendid cast of bizarre and charming bugs perfectly pitched to capitalize on a holiday marketing bonanza. - Wade Major
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