ANIMAL DAY : Johnson & Kirkpatrick’s ‘Over the Hedge’ [7/10]

Over the Hedge is based on the popular American newspaper comic-strip by Michael Fry and T.Lewis which in 1998 won the prestigious 'Wilbur Award' from the Religious Communicators' Council for "excellence in the communication of religious issues, values and themes." But don't let that put you off. Though there's much talk along the way of the importance of family* (whether biological or ad hoc) the picture is much too savvy and energetic to bog down into over-saccharine homilies or life-lessons.
What we get instead is an amusingly barbed satire of modern-day suburbia – masquerading (very successfully) as a bouncy, brightly-coloured children's CGI cartoon. Even viewers who've grown heartily sick of Hollywood's seemingly endless run of computerised talking animals (and/or their cousins, talking inanimate objects) should give this one a look – it'll do until the much-anticipated Laundry Matt (concept by 'Vern') finally swings into production.

If nothing else, Over the Hedge deserves credit for providing Nick Nolte with the most logical role of his recent career: his dialogue has for some time increasingly consisted of gruff, grumbling grunts and growls, so it makes perfect sense for him now to go the whole hog (so to speak) and play an actual bear. This bad-tempered, lone-wolf ursine – named Vincent – proves crucial to the (rickety) plot when an ultra-resourceful, exceedingly hungry raccoon named RJ (Bruce Willis) steals and then inadvertently destroys his huge stash of (junk) food – the latter presumably pilfered from campsites and 'garbage' pails.

Woken prematurely from his winter slumber, Vincent gives RJ seven days to replace the hoarded items – so the raccoon enlists the help of a 'family' of foraging forest creatures (a turtle, two porcupines and their three offspring, a father-and-daughter possum pair, a skunk and a squirrel) who have recently emerged from hibernation. RJ and the family are in for a shock, however – a large hedge has appeared on the edge of their habitation, and behind it a sprawling suburban development. The only course of action is to venture over (or rather through) the hedge and into the humans' domain…

The plot of Over the Hedge (worked on by three sets of credited writers, while also reportedly featuring very significant input from Fry and Lewis) isn't the picture's strong suit, though it holds together rather better than that of Chicken Run – which director Kirkpatrick co-wrote, and to which this picture bears some superficial similarities. The story – in which the animals square up against the ferociously neighbourhood-proud Gladys (Allison Janney) and her hired 'verminator' Dwayne (Thomas Haden Church) – is really no more than a pretext for a string of inventive and imaginative gags: mostly visual (the critters are constantly zooming through the air for various reasons) but with enought of a heavy verbal element to keep older viewers engaged.

Indeed, many of the one-liners will fly straight over the kids' heads, including in-joke dialogue references to Citizen Kane and A Streetcar Named Desire – both of them placed in the mouth (muzzle?) of a very hammy possum played by the famously hammy William Shatner.  In addition to such nifty casting, Over the Hedge scores by unfolding within what's in effect a very tiny geographical location – refreshingly, there are no epic quests or country-hopping escapades in store for this bunch, who experience more than enough drama and excitement within a few grassy feet of the hollow (captain's?) log they call home.

Neil Young
27th June, 2006

OVER THE HEDGE : [7/10] : USA 2006 : Tim JOHNSON & Karey KIRKPATRICK : 83 mins (BBFC timing)
seen at Odeon cinema (formerly UCI), MetroCentre, Gateshead (UK), 27th June 2006 – press show

* not community mind… see The Station Agent, etc etc.