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Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 05/19/06
Up and Over
By peter clines
Over the Hedge
Len Blum and Lorne Cameron & David Hoselton and Karey Kilpatrick
Based on the comic strip by Michael Fry and T. Lewis
In food-debt deep to a homicidal grizzly bear, RJ Raccoon (voiced by Bruce Willis) sees a chance at survival with a group of foragers who have found themselves abruptly surrounded by a gated community. Despite the wariness of group leader Verne (voiced by Garry Shandling), the animals join RJ as he begins to teach them about their new wilderness home…suburbia. It took a while, but there's finally a good, solid, CGI movie about talking animals (I, for one, was starting to have serious doubts it would ever happen). The script is sharp and solid (although a bit slow at first), the characters remarkably developed, and even a fairly standard story of betrayal and redemption gets a good scrub and a few fun twists. When was the last time an animated film paid homage to Warner Brothers cartoons while also giving a nod to On the Waterfront or Constantine? And how many children will get the double joke of a possum who overacts all of his death scenes…and is voiced by William Shatner? Over the Hedge is a pleasant and very funny reminder that a story can play to children while the script plays to adults.
 Over the Hedge
DreamWorks
Rated PG; 83 min.
Buy tickets now
Buy the poster
Peter Clines has had a lifelong love affair with the movies. He grew up in New England, where he studied English literature and education, and now lives and writes somewhere in Southern California. If anyone knows exactly where, he would appreciate a few hints.
Over the Hedge courtesy DreamWorks
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