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Spoiler alert: What’s over the hedge is ... people!
Over The Hedge is DreamWorks’ latest animated wonder, a story about friendship, working together and the perils of junk food.
It’s almost spring.
RJ, a wily raccoon (voiced by Bruce Willis) steals food from a mean-spirited bear, gets caught, and is given a week to replace all he stole.
Convinced he will soon be nothing more than bear food, the raccoon falls in with a family-like group that consists of possums, porcupines, a skunk, a squirrel and a turtle; the turtle, Verne, is the leader of the group.
Verne’s job is to get the other animals foraging and gathering, so that they’ll once again be prepared with stored food when winter comes. RJ sees their enterprising spirit (and innocence) and decides to use the group to help him gather the food he owes that bear.
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RJ soon introduces the other animals to the world of humans and the joy of junk food, and together, they work out a complex scheme to grab as much human food as they can.
Adventure and large laughs follow.
In content and animation, Over The Hedge has a pleasant sense of the absurd and the exaggerated. The humans in the suburbs are SUV-driving, over-consuming, space-hogging idiots. RJ explains, cheerfully, “For humans, enough is never enough.” The animals eat human food and get hyper on sugar and caffeine. Much of the humour comes from the clash between animal and human habitats.
The big laughs, however, come from the vocal performances, and particularly from Steve Carell as Hammy the sincere but not-too-bright squirrel. The cast is stuffed with brilliant comics: Wanda Sykes is a stand-out as Stella the skunk, and it was a stroke of genius to cast that ham, William Shatner, as a possum. (Wait until you see him play possum.)
Over The Hedge manages to illustrate the perils of greed and the benefits of friendship, loyalty and group effort, and without hitting anyone over the head with it. It’s environmentally friendly. It will make you laugh out loud. These are good things.
BOTTOM LINE: Could offend suburbanites, but only those who realize they are the butt of the joke.
(This film is rated PG)