Aloha, Amigos.

This is your friendly group contributor here with another thread.

And today, I'll be making my second review on an animated film by Dreamworks by reviewing "Antz".

Originally, I was going to review several other Dreamworks films before coming to this one. However, after I watched this movie again not too long ago, I decided to go ahead and review it.

Anyway, here's the film's summary:

Having been depressed for quite some time, Z the worker ant is unable to get what doing anything "for the colony" and being hive-minded really means, and so he finds himself yearning to look for better things and be his own ant.

However, when he suddenly meets Princess Bala and falls in love with her, his life abruptly changes to the point of where he 'kidnaps' her and becomes a fugitive to the colony.

Could this be the beginning of his life changing for the better? Or could it be the opposite of that?

I will admit that there were some things about the film that didn't quite sit well with me. But, nevertheless, even though the film won't reach the heights of Pixar's "A Bug's Life", it was still entertaining.

For instance, the film's characters, and the performances of the ensemble cast, were pretty impressive and memorable. The character development was also really strong.

The best of the voice cast and characters would obviously have to be Woody Allen and his character of Z. Every step of the way, Allen hit the nail on the head with every line he was given, his comedic-timings especially being so funny you can immediately see why he's highly regarded as one of America's best comedians. The character of Z himself also has somuch life, his insecurities and conflicting times of mid-life crisis being something perfect for teens to connect with. His growth in learning that everything should never always be about him was also a nice touch, in this case, never always thinking about yourself and what youwant.

The humor of this film was likewise entertaining. It may not be strong enough to get somebody rolling on the ground with laughter, but its well-worked with its own sense of fun to earn chuckles and giggles.

The story by Chris and Paul Weitz, and Todd Alcott, as well as the direction by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson, were really great too. The teams may not have been able to make this movie as strong as the efforts done by Pixar at the time, or any of Dreamworks's later efforts, but they were still able to make the movie something fascinating to see. Plus, the way they were able to capture the accuracy of ant behavior and culture, while throwing in some humanism at the same time, was intriguing.

Additionally, I must admit that while DWA's first effort at computer animation certainly wasn't the best, mainly because of it showing signs that everything was done by computer, it was nevertheless pretty well-done. It was compelling in its own way, and to me, that's all that matters.

My final positive noting on this film is on the music by John Powell and Harry-Gregson Williams. Both musicians had literally killed it with composing for this film, and it proved to be a really great start for their collaborations with Dreamworks. In my opinion, the best musical moment came from the song that played in the montage of Z and Princess Bala spending time together in Insectopia.

Now if I'm going to be honest, the only real problems that I saw in this film were that there was some cussing, mainly the use of a certain "D" word, that seemed to spoil some of the fun. That, and some of the content featured may be too adult for a PG-rated film.

In the end, though, while the film certainly isn't perfect and is likely not the best of Dreamworks's animated films, even as their first, it's still pretty intriguing and worthy enough to grab popcorn for. It's something that I highly recommend exclusively for teens and adults, that's for sure.

So, I rate Dreamworks's "Antz" four out of five stars.