Tuck & Roll (Michael McShane) give a little performance. © Disney Enterprises, Inc./Pixar Animation Studios. All Rights Reserved.

As the Disney artists discovered when they designed Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio (1940), real insects range in appearance from unattractive to downright repulsive. The cast of Bug's Life has an appealing, round-eyed, cartoony look that allows the artists to animate them effectively. When Flik stumbles into an insect city, one of the characters he encounters is a caterpillar-mime, as bothersome as any human street performer. It's a minor gem of animation that showcases the talent and skill of the PIXAR crew.

Bug's Life makes it clear that the PIXAR artists continue to lead the field in computer character animation. Viewers can recognize similar-looking ant characters apart just by the way they move. However, even in their capable hands, computer animation remains less subtle and expressive than top-quality drawn or stop-motion animation. Plus, the characters still look more like plastic toys than living organisms.

Of Toy Story Caliber?
For all its energy and charm, Bugs Life is less engaging than PIXAR's first feature. Toy Story tapped into a fantasy every child shares -- that their toys come alive when no one's around to watch. Bugs, even cute bugs, are less endearing than familiar playthings. There's no relationship in Bug's Life as compelling as the bond that develops between Woody and Buzz. Dot, Atta's younger sister (Hayden Panettiere), always believes in Flik, but she's a bit too self-consciously cute, like a larval Shirley Temple. At times, Dot feels like she was added to the story to hook little girls into seeing a film that might otherwise be considered a "boy" movie.

Visually, A Bug's Life shows a lot more color than Antz. © Disney Enterprises, Inc./Pixar Animation Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Director John Lasseter and co-director Andrew Stanton don't rely as heavily on dialogue as Antz directors Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson, although the characters often talk more than they really need to. In many places, the animation alone is strong enough to carry the story. The rapid-fire gags, brightly colored visuals and constant movement in some scenes gets a bit overwhelming. Every syllable every characters utters is accompanied by a gesture or a change of expression; sometimes it's enough for a character to stand quietly and say what he has to. The breakneck comic chase at the end, with its swooping camera moves and MTV-style editing, goes on too long and wears out its welcome.

These minor flaws aside, A Bug's Life is a clever, enormously entertaining film that has "hit" written all over it. This round of the Disney vs. DreamWorks duel goes to Disney -- and PIXAR -- for a technical knock-out.

Charles Solomon is an internationally respected critic and historian of animation. His most recent books include The Disney That Never Was (Hyperion, 1995), Les Pionniers du Dessin Animé Américain (Dreamland, Paris, 1996), Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation (Knopf, 1989; reprinted, Wings, 1994) and The Prince of Egypt: A New Vision in Animation (Abrams, 1998). His writings on the subject have appeared in TV Guide, Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, Modern Maturity, Film Comment, the Hollywood Reporter, Millimeter, the Manchester Guardian, and been reprinted in newspapers and professional journals in the United States, Canada, France, Russia, Britain, Israel, the Netherlands and Japan.