In stepping out of line in pursuit of his own path, Z lands unexpectedly among the warrior ants, led by the psychotic General Mandible (Gene Hackman, who unlike Woody is pretty much playing his standard character). When from a mentally ill ant he learns the story of Insectopia where all ants are equal, Z truly wants to believe. Z is convinced there's got to be more to life than the endless labors of a worker ant. Weaver is a role that I would've thought would go naturally to Patrick Warburton, but Stallone rises to the occasion of softhearted machismo every bit as good as Warburton. The rest of the vocal casting is good, including among many who get it right Anne Bancroft as the ant queen, Sharon Stone as love-interest Princess Bala, Christopher Walken as the warrior ant Colonel Cutter who is a bit like a samurai caught between his sense of humanity & his sense of dutiful obedience to a lord, & most strikingly excellent (to my surprise), Sylvester Stallone as Weaver, the big guy who has been scrawny Z's friend since they were pupae. So to be sure, it required an effective story to work. It's only adequate for its animation, for it looks like low-resolution 3-D computer art without much spark to it visually, & not even a lot of individuality to the character designs. But it's hard to distance this voice from the neurotic old fart he usually plays & hear him as a youthful quester.Īpart from the either questionable or terrible voice-casting for Z, this is a pretty darned good cartoon for the story. ![]() Woody does get a few good one-liners & certainly his great comic timing. The time wasted on this scene would better have been used to provide the underpinnings of Z's questioning of authority & dissatisfaction over his own position as a mere cog, rather than a momentary parody of Woody Allen which is not the least sustained as the story progresses. The voice of Woody is not the least bit evocative of youthfulness, & is the antithesis of heroic translates "aged horndog."Ī sequence early in the tale was all too obviously written to try to make Z more Woody Allenesque, when Z pours out his neuroses on the couch of the therapist (Dan Akroyd). He has mainly only ever played variations of himself, so his voice is now fully identified with "nervous old man who boinks his step-daughter," whereas Z is a youthful worker ant who sets out on a path of heroism. Retrieved April 11, 2021.Woody Allen is ill-cast as the voice of "Z" in the computer-animated Antz (1998).
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