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In a year full of CGI cute animal films that rarely satisfy, Over the Hedge comes as a notable exception.  Clever, witty, well written, and nicely voiced, this is one of 2006’s CGI cute animal flick to beat.  (I’ll leave it to you to figure out which other CGI cute animal flick passed muster.)

RJ (Bruce Willis) is an enterprising raccoon desperate for food.  He invades the den of a hibernating grizzly named Vincent (Nick Nolte).  Big mistake.  After RJ decimates Vincent’s stash, the bear gives the raccoon less than a week to replace the food, little red wagon included.  Or else.  RJ wracks his brain, anxious for a solution, when he stumbles upon a bit of good luck. 

Spring beckons other animals out of their dens where they had been ensconced all winter with their food supplies.  RJ spots a cooperative band of foraging animals led by the compulsively responsible and ever-worried Verne, a turtle delightfully voiced by Garry Shandling.  His odd assortment of fellow forest-mates includes: Hammy (Steve Carell), a hyperactive squirrel that makes the prehistoric Scrat look like a slug; Stella (Wanda Sykes), a skunk with a chip on her shoulder from being treated badly because of her species’ image; Ozzie (William Shatner) and daughter Heather (Avril Lavigne), opossums who specialize in playing dead; and, Lou (Eugene Levy) and Penny (Catherine O'Hara), porcupine parents of three, sounding like they escaped from Fargo.

Much has happened while they hid from the harsh winter weather.  When Verne tries to muster the group to begin the long process of foraging for next winter, they find themselves blocked from the forest by a vast hedge.  The cagey RJ knows what’s going on. He jumps in like Robert Preston’s Harold Hill from The Music Man to explain that humans have built their homes all around the forest habitat.  There’s trouble in River City.  But with trouble comes opportunity . . . the big con.  RJ explains that they don’t have to spend months collecting food for next year; they can fill their den within a week.  He seals the deal by tearing open a packet of Cheese Doodles.  And as the explosion of powdery, cheesy chemicals (visible from space - one of many clever visual gags) sweeps over the animals, they’re hooked.

Verne’s unfailing instincts and tingling tale don’t trust the fast-talking raccoon, but RJ becomes the new de facto leader.  That night, the band invades human territory to overturn trashcans and forage like they’ve never foraged before.  But RJ underestimated human reluctance to share their space with wild animals.  Gladys (Allison Janney), the obsessive-compulsive president of the homeowners association, is appalled to find the intruders.  She summons lethal help in the form of an exterminator named Dwayne (Thomas Haden Church); he has the nose to identify the intruders and the technology to catch or kill them.  The war is on and Vincent is becoming impatient.  Before the conflict is over, many animals are transformed, even some of the more domesticated kind, like a Himalayan cat named Tiger (Omid Djalili). 

Len Blum, Lorne Cameron, David Hoselton, and Karey Kirkpatrick are responsible for the clever screenplay.  I enjoyed their sly humor.  The voice cast is uniformly excellent.  I was amused by Shatner . . . doing . . . Shatner early in the film, self deprecating and droll; he settles down for an appropriately humorous and dramatic performance.  Garry Shandling is terrific as the worrying Verne, projecting just the right amount of suspicion and resentment.  Eugene Levy and Penny Catherine O'Hara are consistently smile-inducing as they channel Frances McDormand’s Marge Gunderson.  Steve Carell is unrecognizable as Hammy, but that character’s charm is more a product of the animator’s efforts that the actor’s.  Allison Janney, late of The West Wing, has a more thankless role; she simply has to be intense, unpleasant, and hysterical.  I was surprised that I found Bruce Willis’ RJ the least entertaining character.  He’s wisecracking, sarcastic, manipulative, and will ultimately learn a valuable lesson, but compared to the others, I thought he was a bit bland.

Arguably not up to the better films that have come put of Pixar, Over the Hedge is still smart enough to appeal to adults as well as children. 

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

This is a terrific-looking 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer; it must have been direct digital.  Edge halos are present, but sufficiently subtle as to be essentially invisible; amplitude and thickness are low.  The colors are splendid, rich and vivid.  Finely grained textures, like the CGI fur, is exceptional.  Small object detail is also impressive, with clearly delineated backyard objects in long shots.  Contrast and video dynamic range are exceptional, with fine, revealing shadow detail the many nighttime scenes.  It may seem oxymoronic to characterize a CGI feature as film-like, but it is.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The wonderful part about a CGI feature film is that the audio is exclusively what can be created in the studio.  That gives the sound designers great latitude.  This Dolby Digital 5.1 track is every bit (no pun intended) as good as the visuals.  Deep, deep bass is present when Verne and RJ inadvertently take to the sky, propelled by an ignited propane tank.  The lively orchestral score by Rupert Greggson-Williams is convincingly presented across a broad soundstage.  Sound effects have a pleasing, impactful dynamic range.  The surrounds are used liberally for both discrete effects and pans.  And the voice work has a nice sense of presence.

There’s another English track in Dolby Surround 2.0 that I did not sample.  Alternate languages are in French Dolby Digital 5.1 and Spanish Dolby Surround 2.0.  Subtitles are in French, Spanish, and English, for which there are Closed Captions.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

The disc opens with a trailer for film I look forward to with great anticipation, the first CGI animated feature from Aardman Animations, Flushed Away (2:16).

The first of the film’s supplements is a commentary by directors Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick and producer Bonnie Arnold.  Much of the discussion relates to the difficulties of animating certain sequences.  We also learn about how the script evolved as the animators did their work.  They describe the artistic decisions that represent the storylines and situations.  Based on no small inspiration from Dave Letterman’s quips about squirrel’s nuts, they describe the jokes that could be left in the film and those that couldn’t.  Regardless, I found them to be a little dry.  In fact, I can’t recall a CGI animated film commentary that is very compelling.  Perhaps that’s because the artistry is so technical.

The all-new animated short Hammy's Boomerang Adventure (4:31) is a cute little diversion.  The hyper squirrel finds a boomerang and can’t quite get rid of it, even using the most Tex Avery of means.  There’s a good reason for it, which I will not divulge.  You’ll find an optional commentary for the short by director Will Finn.  He explains the origin of the idea and how the voice cast was so great about jumping in as they completed work on the feature film.

You’ll find Jerry Seinfeld introducing a new CGI production about bees, cleverly entitled Bee Movie (1:03).  Little more than a teaser, it will have to do until November 2007.

The Behind The Hedge featurette (12:00) is a great look at the origins and development of the film.  I wasn’t aware that the characters came from a daily newspaper comic strip by Michael Fry and T. Lewis.  We follow the artists as they design their characters’ looks, then interact with live animals and start from scratch.  Special animation effects, character articulation, voice actor impressions . . . it’s all here.  A fine making-of featurette that avoids EPK fluff.

Regular readers know that a Meet The Cast featurette (15:43) is one of my favorite animated feature film supplements.  Although the voices in this film are so well known that putting a face to a voice was, for the most part, superfluous, it was still a pleasure to see the actors in action behind the microphones, enjoying the process, and talking to us about the experience and their characters.
 
Verm-Tech Institute Infomercial with Dwayne LaFontant (2:55) is a combination of a satirical commercial for those interested in starting a career terminating the cute and furry, and a rundown of the various characters that appear in the film.  Thomas Haden Church narrates in character.

The Tech of Over The Hedge featurette (6:03) takes us to DreamWorks Animation, where we learn from its CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg on down what it takes to bring such a production to the screen.  The best part about his little short is that it focuses on the technical aspects of creating the look the producers and directors desired.  We learn about lighting, fur, the server farm that does the rendering (complete with shameless plugs for AMD and Hewlett Packard).  The worst part about this little short is that it’s a little short.  I was left wanting more.

Previews offers trailers for: Wallace & Gromit - The Curse of the Were- Rabbit (0:32); Antz (0:32); Madagascar (0:32); Charlotte’s Web (1:46), a soon to be released theatrical film with a great voice cast; Nacho Libre (2:21); and Barnyard (2:31).  Nacho Libre?  How did that get in there?

Galleries contains numerous still associated with Character Design, Package Design, Sketches, and Storyboards.

Shrek has his own icon on the main menu.  Go there for an extended preview (3:42) of the first two Shrek films and a teaser for the third, due in theaters in May 2007.

DreamWorks Kids (DWK): This Way To Play is virtual playground of for kids, including: Animal Fun Facts: Critter 411 (4:02), a cursory look at the real animals represented in this film; Animator 101: Learn To Draw Hammy (10:56), which has DreamWorks Supervising Animator David Burgess offering self-explanatory tutorial; and, Games & Activities features Backyard Obstacle Course and Acorn Toss, strictly for the kids. Hammy's Boomerang Adventure is also accessible from the DWK menu screen.

The 83-minute firm is organized into sixteen chapters.

Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?

Load the disc and an HTML file will automatically open your browser to display three icons: Printables; Weblinks; and, Requirements.  On my computer, the menu items were invisible, but moving the mouse cursor over the screen reveals twenty Adobe PDF files of a calendar, a flipbook, finger puppets . . . you get the idea.  Fun for kids.  I just hope the menu is visible on your screen.  Requirements defines the minimum configuration to enjoy the features (yes, I satisfy them all, that’s not why the menu items were invisible).  And Weblinks offers active links to your choice of DreamWorks Kids and the Over the Hedge Movie website.

Final Thoughts