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All Movie Info
Starring:
Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, William Shatner, Avril Lavigne, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Wanda Sykes, Nick Nolte, Omid Djalili, Allison Janney, Thomas Haden Church, Sami Kirkpatrick, Shane Baumel, Madison Davenport
Directed By:
Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick
Written By:
Len Blum
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Over the Hedge (2006)
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Movie Review by AJ 
June 5th, 2006
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Over the Hedge gets two very crucial aspects of any good CG animated flick from this decade down pat. The first it has right out of the gate, as you can tell from the commercials: It has really cute talking things that usually don't talk, in this case animals (there's even a turtle!). The second you probably wouldn't suspect from the Hammy the Squirrel-loaded adverts: It delivers a very pointed social commentary. I don't see it as a terrorists crossing our borders metaphor like Stephen Colbert has joked about (if anything, we are the terrorists). Rather, the film gets in a very sharp jab at our fast food age, especially when Bruce Willis' R.J. the Raccoon describes the dinner table as "the altar at which they worship!" Based on the long-running comic strip (which unfortunately has never run in my paper) and directed by Antz helmer Tim Johnson and Chicken Run writer Karey Kirkpatrick, Over the Hedge will manage to please both adults and children alike. The adults will be consistently amused by the social parodies and witty banter, not to mention the pop culture references (which range from Star Trek to A Streetcar Named Desire), and the kids will be taken by the colorful animals, especially Steve Carrell's hyperactive Hammy. If the movie isn't as good as your usual PIXAR fare, it's because it doesn't always maintain its level of intelligence, and sometimes sacrifices character for sight gags. Still...it's a very fun movie, and you'll even get something meaningful out of it. Plus, the regular-sounding songs by Ben Folds are actually really really acerbic and cynical if you open your ears to the lyrics.
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