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The manicured lawns and overstuffed garbage cans of suburbia become a buffet for woodland creatures in
Over the Hedge. A self-centered raccoon named RJ (voiced by Bruce Willis,
Die Hard) steals and accidentally destroys the hoard of an angry bear (Nick Nolte,
48 Hours), who gives the raccoon a week to replace it. RJ despairs--until he meets an odd gang of foragers, ranging from a turtle named Verne (Garry Shandling,
The Larry Sanders Show), a father/daughter duo of opossums (the bizarre pairing of William Shatner and pop singer Avril Lavigne), a family of porcupines (with
A Mighty Wind's Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara as the parents), and a hyperactive squirrel named Hammy (Steve Carell,
The 40 Year Old Virgin). By convincing these friendly beasts that the suburban homesteads on the other side of a recently erected hedge are a mother-lode of cast-off food, RJ hopes to dupe them into doing his gathering. But when the suburban residents realize they've been invaded by woodland pests, an exterminator is called to take care of the problem. The overarching storyline of
Over the Hedge is pure formula--your basic "family matters more than anything" lesson--but moment to moment, the movie is delightfully crisp and clever. The animation is topnotch, the acting is excellent (other voices include those of Allison Janney,
The West Wing, and Thomas Haden Church,
Sideways), and the satirical jabs at consumerism are actually funny. An above-average animated movie.
--Bret Fetzer
Stills from Over the Hedge (click for larger image)
Review
Howard Hawks once said that a great movie is three good scenes and no bad ones. Over the Hedge is halfway there -- it has two good scenes and no bad ones. The two extended sequences that fire on all cylinders are good enough to make the film worthwhile. The first of these sequences, involving Bruce Willis' raccoon explaining how suburbanites live their whole lives around junk food, strikes the perfect balance of social satire and savvy filmmaking. However the
pice de rsistance is a two-minute bit where Steve Carell's hyperactive squirrel downs a caffeinated drink. The filmmakers have set up how they decide to portray this situation with such skill that the entire time it plays out any audience member should not be able to keep from laughing and laughing hard. Every time Carell's character opens his mouth, the results are comic gold, and Willis as well as William Shatner deliver smart performances that walk the line of being self-aware without being condescending. SCTV fans will savor Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara playing porcupines with heavy Canadian accents. The animals are all drawn with big expressive eyes, making it easy to find them cute and adorable, even if the film has no interest in building a strong emotional arc for anyone other than Willis' raccoon. Over the Hedge is a solid family film that will not remind anyone of the Pixar films, but is far better than many feeble contemporary animated animal movies such as Shark Tale. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide