Over The Hedge

Another good animated movie from DreamWorks to take the kids and us grown up ones to this Summer. This is a comic strip adaptation with the voice talents of Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner and Nick Nolte. It's the tale of a group of forest animals and their struggle to survive against nature, their own kind and us. here's a brief summary…

It's Spring in the forest and when Verne and his mixed family of animals wake up from hibernation, their main thought is to start collecting food to see them through the next Winter. But they soon find out that, while they were sleeping, most of their forest has disappeared and a huge hedge has sprung up around them.

Worried that they won't be able to collect enough food, Verne suggests they adapt and try eating other things, like bark, but they don't seem convinced. Luckily, who should turn up but RJ, a street wise racoon who offers to show them the world beyond then hedge, where humans leave food lying all over the place and how, if they stick with him, they'll be able to collect enough food for next Winter in a single week. But RJ has his own agenda and the local home-owners association don't exactly take kindly to having their world invaded by forest critters on the scrounge for food so it won't be as easy as they think.

I quite enjoyed this, okay the storyline was the usual schmaltzy family values kind of thing and the very thought of a group of animals like a turtle, a skunk and some possums and porcupines sharing a hibernation den is extremely unlikely but it works well. The animation is very good and there are loads of comic moments in there that'll have you laughing out loud. The star of the piece for me was Hammy the hyperactive squirrel (Steve Carell). Take the kids, they'll love it.

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family
My Rating: 8/10