Taking it Easy with Over the Hedge (2006)

Today was a rough day so I wanted something lighthearted. It was also William Shatner's birthday and I just happened to have a copy of Over the Hedge on hand which he is in. Sounded like a plan to me. The cast of voice talent is pretty huge here. Besides Shatner it also stars Bruce Willis, Steve Carell, Gary Shandling, Wanda Skyes, Nick Nolte, Thomas Haden Church, Eugene Levy and even Avril Lavigne for some reason. There's a few others, but that's the majority of the cast which is recognizable in some way or another. The only question was would the movie live up to the gigantic cast? Hit the jump to see what I thought.


I get the feeling not many people have seen this movie. It kinda has that air of irrelevancy surrounding it. Here's the basic story for those who need it. RJ is a raccoon (Willis) who thinks only with his stomach. When he can't get that last bag of chips out of the vending machine, he decides to raid a local bear's cache of food just before he wakes up from hibernation. Of course he ends up make a noise and the bear wakes up catching him red handed. One thing leads to another and the food gets ruined. RJ is given 1 week to replace it or he'll be eaten instead. He tricks a group of foragers into helping him steal the food from a local housing development that sprung up over the winter. Comical mischief/hi-jinks ensue and RJ learns the meaning of friendship in the process.

Other than the uninspired story and plot, the main problem I had with the movie was actually that the voices were TOO recognizable to me. All I thought of when RJ talked was Bruce Willis. All I saw when Ozzie talked was William Shatner. The characters just didn't have enough character to fully capture my imagination. I don't think kids would have this problem though. Actually, I take that back for Hammy, the super sonic hyperactive squirrel voice by Steve Carell, he was a pretty great character.

This leads me into the graphics. The cg work was really quite good, but it lacked enough artistic style to make it really endearing. I actually think their designs would have worked FAR better as hand drawn 2D animation instead of cg models. They certainly seem to have that quality to them at least. There need to be more 2D animated movies back in the world. This would have worked perfectly for that.

In the end, while Over the Hedge was pretty plain, I did have some mild mindless enjoyment out of it, exactly what I needed today. I really wish it was hand drawn and not cg though. If you've got nothing to do and this comes on, you could do far worse than check it out. Kinda forgettable, but not too bad either. No need to hunt it down to see it though. The Princess and the Frog is better, AND it's hand drawn 2D!