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@@muddashucka9743 Plus Jimmy believed timmy was smarter than he looked and the "fairies" were just advanced holographic AI he invented. Heck he didn't even believe santa was real, well until he electrocuted him.
I'll give it this: this has the best bug character designs of all the ant movies. I especially like how the eyes are human-like enough to be expressive but also recognizably insect eyes, and how the wasps are less anthropomorphic to make them more intimidating.
Those wasps could honestly give Hopper and his gang a run for their money. I mean, they're chromed iridescent, etched, and gilded for god's sake, as if their exoskeletons are made of metal instead of chitin.
The frog stomach scene was the only scene of the movie that burned into my repressed memories. Never have I been both fascinated and horrified of seeing intricately detailed anatomy
It was also the only funny moment, in my opinion. I wish, tho, The Critic could have said something about the ending of that scene when Lucas and Zoc talks about the Aclca Root, Lucas cheers "Hands in the air" (maybe could have thrown and Aang clip there) the fly celebrates his freedom but then within a second is eaten again and says "Awww crap"
The funny thing about the "Dead. Dead. His body's lasagna." part is he actually wouldn't be hurt by the fall there. The smaller a creature is, the less of an impact they take from falls. It's why squirrels can fall out of trees and land fine. At that size, even reaching terminal velocity would do no worse than a couple scrapes.
Eusocial insects are probably some of the worst species to give you a lesson about the importance of diversity. Zoc would have probably given him a lecture on eugenics, instead. Although I guess it'd just be ripping off Maya the Bee, then.
I mainly remember this movie because the first time I watched it I really liked Zoc's voice and thought "wow his voice actor must be really cute!" And it was Nicholas Cage. My sister likes to remind me I thought Nick Cage's voice was cute every time we watch it.
This may not be a great movie (especially because it caused Jimmy Neutron to be cancelled), but I think the message that Zoc tells Lucas is very profound and probably resonates with a lot of people.
Well technically if Ant Bully preformed better at the box office it wouldn’t have been cancel because Jimmy Neutron’s tv budget was tied to the box office. The original budget for the series was Jimmy Neutron’s box office return from the film’s success.
I loved this movie as a kid even more than bug's life. I think it was the idea of shrinking down and living as a ant that interested me more than the conflict in a bug's life.
@@carlotta4th I agree with you. What I liked about the Ant Bully was all the small inventive details, like the glasses Lucas makes, the pods that shoot sticky stuff they use to carry him to the hive, the whole ant training sequence and the fact they have a wizard. Plus animated movies were more visually appealing to me as a kid, this one reminds me of another movie that blended 3d animation with live-action called Arthur and the Invisibles, now that movie was full of the stuff I like.
Fun Fact: Zac Tyler Eisen was one the most ironic youngest child actors that he is very good at Voice acting but only for CG Animation and also Anime-Handwriting on the Two TV Network programs such as Nickelodeon & Nick Jr. 1. He did the voice of Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series 2. He was the voice Pablo the Penguin from The Backyardigans that used to be on Nick Jr. for a really really long time.
Jim saying, "Just do it," and looking dejected is the exact face I've seen my boss make, 12 hours into a 16 hour shift, as we're asked to do something absolutely unnecessary, and I feel that.
@Alistair Winter you get into things like the medical field, firefighting, military, and just in general ones that respond to emergencies, and 16 hours is possible. I've had 24-hour shifts, but you get 24 off. Tho some are "16 hour shifts" but really they're a 24, and you do it again after 3-4 hours of sleep.
Same here. I even saw National Treasure 2 a couple years into watching Antbully frequently. Took me until high school---around the time The Croods came out, which is probably what led me to finding out. It was even more exciting for me because Zoc is my favorite character, and his voice is mostly the reason for that.
It's funny how the Critic mentioned that they didn't want to confuse the exterminator from Ant Bully with the exterminator from Over the Hedge because those movies came out close to each other. At that time I was working at a movie theater and the Over the Hedge advertisement showcasing the exterminator was left up because management thought that it was the exterminator from Ant Bully.
Both Nic Cage and Lily Tomlin went on to lend their voices to one of the greatest animated (Or otherwise) films of all time (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)
FUN FACT: The reason why studios release their crappy films in January is because they know that's the month people aren't going to theaters after spending most of their disposable income on the December holidays
omg, the ant is composed in the scene. you can see in those frames that he has an outline while the phone gets lifted, you can also see artificial darkening on him to simulate a shadow is on him from the phone. they used the same trick the sorting hat in harry potter.
Until I looked him up after finding out here that he did the main character's voice in this movie, I never knew that Aang's voice actor was actually around the same age as Aang himself when doing the voice. That was a pretty impressive job for someone so young.
During my time in college I actually met one of the animators that worked on ant bully. I got to see some of the more in depth workings of the animation. That's it, it was fun tho.
Something else that the Roddy McDowall and Ricardo Montalban roles have in common is that they were the final movie roles for both actors. ...Both highly acclaimed actors went out voicing ants...
If I had a nickel for every mid-2000s kids movie with an exterminator character played by a Spider-Man villain, I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Wow, I remember getting this movie from Blockbuster. As far as -ant- anthropomorphic bug movies go, The Ant Bully was among the better ones. I remember there also being a few deleted scenes that give a little more depth. For instance, the exterminator was really annoyed at Lucus's dad because he was the only one in the entire neighborhood who refused to buy his services, giving an actual reason for his entire scene with Lucus later. I vaguely remember another one showing his parents at their anniversary dinner, and his mother is feeling horrible about not being more attentive of what's really troubling him.
@@systemshocker2875 I was thinking of the one where the exterminator was at the house talking to Lucus's dad before they left on their trip; really cements just how creepy he is with the implied stalking leading into when he approaches Lucus later.
Definitely a better style than Antz or A Bugs's Life for me. The latter couldn't bother to give everyone six limbs (which I was really anal about as a kid) and the former's design was straying into uncanny valley territory because of the old CGI quality of the time. This film was also able to be more true to a real ant's proportions while making them more visually pleasing to look at at the same time. I especially love how every adult ant has unique body markings, especially on the elders. Hova in particular has head markings that resemble the simple eyes on an ant's forehead. And speaking of such, the eyes of all the ant characters are a nice touch too, being human-like irises and pupils overlayed onto what are still clearly compound eyes. Even the non-anthropomorphic wasps got some love; their carapaces are friggin' chromed iridescent and gilded with etchings everywhere! I thought that level of detail was pretty astounding for the time.
I kind wish critic went into how under developed the exterminator was as an antagonist as in the deleted scenes he actually had more scenes in the movie that explained more of his motivations. One scene for example shows he did in fact talk to Lucas’s father and bragged about how he has complete control over the entire neighborhood accept his house and his father generally finding him too creepy to make a deal with hence why he approached Lucas later when he was by himself. He also apparently killed Zoc’s entire family that lived in a different ant hill and overall is a psychopath that enjoys killing bugs like in one deleted scene where he catches flies just to rip their wings off to force them to live on the ground and add their wings to his collection.
Ah I loved this movie as a kid! It came out when I was 9, and I saw it with my dad. Brings back great, fun memories. I know it isn’t the best but it’s hardly the worst.
I like the how the ants' eyes are a combination of both simple eyes and compound eyes. A clever way of bringing a little bit of realism into stylization.
Underwater (2020) is an underrated January sci-fi movie that was unfortunately bogged down by its January release. January movies usually aren’t good, but this was a fantastic exception.
Like the only January movie that I can think of is strange magic and Paddington and that’s literally because I rewatched cellspex review a couple hours ago
Underwater is such an underrated movie. As a fan of Lovecraft, I love that the monsters ended up bring revealed as Cthulhu and the Deep Ones. I wish we had more films based off his works.
I have to admit with The Ant Bully, Ferngully, and Epic, there are a lot of animated movies with humans being shrunken down and being introduced to a bug-type world.
Way to start off your new year with a bang Nostalgia Critic this is an absolutely fun review and I wish you and your friends and family a Happy New Year ❤️
Never saw this movie, but just from watching the review I can definitely say I like the character designs for the bugs much better in this than something like A Bug's Life. The characters having 6 legs and at least sort of moving like real insects is a lot more interesting to me, and even the facial features are a lot more bug-like.
14:33 scary how on point that sounds. 18:09 I'd watch that movie, no matter how long or short it was. 23:06 I WISH rounding up an army to take down my bullies was that quick and easy.
When I watched this back in elementary school, I legit got temporarily traumatized by the scene with the lice. Mainly because I had no idea what lice was and it scared the everliving crap out of me
@@RogueT-Rex8468 fair point....but I mean...I'd expect exterminators of all people to be clean since their job is CLEANING. xD the writers are being dumb.
I agree with you, Julia Roberts here sounds like she actually cares and works in the role. She phoned it in in Ocean's 11 where everyone else was clearly having a ball, and I've never thought she was that great of a beauty.
15:21 Well when you think about the physics, Lucas is actually the size of an ant. He's only falling a few centimeters to the ground. Actually, he could fall from a table and he'd be fine.
The "sleeping with eyes open" comment just makes me even more desperately want Doug to review the Adventures of Tintin. It has the exact same thing, but with a hilarious explanation for why.
I used to watch the older cartoon and read the Herge comics in college, so I was interested in the CGI movie. I started it but never finished it and I don’t know why, but I recently stumbled onto “The Adventures of Tintin” playing on Pluto TV (funny enough around that scene!) and I was legitimately impressed with how good it was. Not only does the movie look absolutely stunning, but it is altogether a super fun watch, with really clever direction and action. It’s also really fucking funny, with Andy Serkis absolutely stealing the show as Captain Haddock.
3:15 You know, aside from the fact that THIS MOVIE IS THE EXACT REASON WHY THE JIMMY NEUTRON TV SHOW ENDED BECAUSE THE PEOPLE BEHIND IT WENT BANKRUPT BECAUSE OF IT!
I have a vivid memory of this movie. My family took a trip to Tennessee when i was 12 and I probably watched this 3 times a day for some reason. We’d go out and do something fun like an amusement park but when we got back to the cabin, BAM, ant bully time. I’ve never had the desire to watch it again after that so it’s just this little anomaly of a film within a very specific memory of mine. Super Nostalgic.
Considering that the Jimmy Neutron TV show ended in 2006 when DNA Productions went bankrupt, I'd like to say this little factoid; Apparently there was going to be a season 4, that focused more on Evil Jimmy possibly returning and Jimmy and Cindy's relationship. Of course that never happened and a lot of fans felt like that had it continue with that premise, it might've worn itself out. So basically The Ant Bully indirectly saved Jimmy Neutron's legacy, at least until when Planet Sheen came out.
Fact: According to some online websites (including Wikipedia), shortly before the release of The Ant Bully (2006), most of the employees at DNA Productions were laid off and the studio was closed (as the result of their second and final film to be made after Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)), which was the main reason why Jimmy Neutron was cancelled and that we even never got a fourth season to Jimmy Neutron as well. And this movie would also be the last film acting role of Ricardo Montalbán (from films and TV shows including Fantasy Island (the original TV show from 1977 to 1984), Star Trek (the original TV series and The Wrath of Khan (1982)), two of the Planet of the Apes film from the early 1970s, and the Spy Kids franchise), before his death on January 14, 2009.
It’s been years since I saw this movie (I saw it in theatres and I think I had the DVD of it). Which character is Nicky? (I haven’t started watching the Nostalgia Critique review yet.)
Okay but the score "Bullies and Sweetrocks" from the movie itself is really beautiful if you listen to it, to me that was the one redeeming thing from it!
Fun Fact: The role of Mommo, Lucas' grandmother, was originally voiced by Shirley MacLaine. During production, the role was re-cast with Lily Tomlin, and some Mommo shots had to be reanimated once Mommo's dialogue was re-recorded. Similarly, some of the shots with Fugax had to reanimated when Alan Cumming was replaced with Bruce Campbell.
It's been a while since I saw such a desinterested Nostalgia Critic review. Fits the January theme I guess. At least I got a laugh out of the sponsorship bit. Also, I'm kinda surprised he hardly even mentioned the scenes with Tiffany (Lucas' sister). Lots of foot fetish, giantess fantasy... even got some coverage on DeviantArt.
Well yeah, but it's inside a frog so I'm not really into it. 😑 @@jman2634I too liked Tiffany a lot. Also, I just recently discovered she was voiced by *Allison Mack* (Chloe from "Smallville"), yet another one of my juvenile crushes.
Happy New Year Critic. I think this quote sums it up "Who knows? It's only just out of reach down the block on the beach, maybe tonight."- West Side Story
I remember getting really pissed off about this movie because they said the ants don’t deserve to be bullied because they never ever go in the house and all the while I had ants all over the inside of my house anytime a crumb gets dropped and feeling like this movie was just ant propaganda to make people let their guard down.
I feel like he does better at voice acting. Since he's got such a distinctive face that everyone knows, and as far I've been able to tell his characters don't require a ton of makeup, you can't help but only see Nicolas Cage when he's in a live action role. When I saw The Croods, I recognized his voice, but I eventually forgot it was Nicolas Cage playing Grug. Same happened with Zoc after I found out it was him.
My only experience with this film? When I was in middle school I asked for a copy of the game “Bully” created by GTA’s creators to basically be GTA set in a high school. Instead of that I got the video game adaptation of this all because the 2 games share one word in the title
You know the tragic irony of comparing Ricardo Monatlban in this to Roddy McDowell in A Bug's Life? Both films were the respective actors' last films. The only difference is Montalban lived to see Ant Bully while McDowell died before A Bug's Life came out.
24:39 "Yes sir, it's a standard Muppet finale. If you don't know how to end it, go out with a bang." -Jim Henson's test pilot of Johnny Hart's Wizard of Id
This is a movie that I'd watch over Antz any day. Anatomically accurate ants, for once, and a pretty good story with memorable characters, second. I honestly never even remembered that Nicholas Cage and Julia Roberts voiced these characters, I just knew I really liked the ant lady in this movie.
Same, I thought it was something I made up honestly, like some weirder version of Antz and bugs life. Tho this movie reminds me of the game "Grounded".
Of all the things I would've loved to see in this movie, it would be more of the jovial beetle, the grouchy fly, and the gloomy glowworm. It would've been awesome to have them have actual names and maybe a closer relationship with the main cast; they could've been friends with Hova and/or Zoc outside the colony and, despite their differences, be true companions who helped out in the final battle against Stan Beals and give Lucas a warm farewell as he was brought back to his original size. That's how I think the movie could've been improved. Or maybe have a bug antagonist instead of a human one.
8:09 So I actually own the DVD of this film and of the things I would do is look at the extra stuff in bonus features. One of the things that was on the disc were cut content that included a scene of the exterminator making the same offer to the dad character. The father declines the offer saying that he was not interested. While I can see why it was cut due to being apart of a different scene that I felt like didn't need to be included. I do wish they found some way to include the diolauge.
I personally think bugs are cool, and I like bug character designs, and whilst these are a bit silly and inconsistent, I still think they look cooler than the designs in Antz, and Bugs Life is not worth comparing to. The ant hill environments look pretty cool as well here.
@@dylansharp8471 From the standpoint of realism, or of having a consistent philosophy in how real bug traits are translated to more human traits. I haven't re-watched this, and I don't care to, so I don't have any examples on hand. As for A Bugs Life, it obviously has a much sillier design philosophy that cares much less about making the character look interesting and authentic as the insects they are. Hence why the ants in that movie have silly traits like 4 limbs, and have their legs attach to their abdomen instead of thorax, etc. That's very boring to me. Insects are very alien compared to humans, so I love it when designs do a good job at mediating between that insect nature and human traits we want for relatability. It's a tricky thing to do, in my experience it always ends up coming down to several more arbitrary choices that I'm never super-satisfied with, but that's also part of what's interesting about it. At least movies like Antz and Ant Bully try to preserve a lot of the unique traits of the insect, whereas A Bug's Life will toss out much of the insectoid traits at the drop of a hat. Another similar comparison is between Disney's Pinocchio and Del Toro's Pinocchio, regarding the cricket. Even as a kid I thought the Disney cricket design was extremely lame, whereas I really like Del Toro's design for the cricket, it looks really cool, because it retains a lot of interesting non-human traits, like a weird head shape, correctly structured body, backwards-jointed legs, etc.
Never had any idea who the cast was until watching this. It's safe to say that the biggest thing holding my attention to this movie when it came out was the fact they added magic.
Technically he would survive that fall at 15:25 Clearly his mass has reduced as well as his size, so the air resistance and impact force would be minuscule. Terminal velocity for an ant sized object isnt a lot of force.
I actually remember the teaser trailer shorts that just showed Rob Paulson’s bug having small comedic moments with other bugs and almost wishing that was the movie lol
I remember watching all of the DVD bonus features as a child, and there's a deleted scene where the exterminator talks to the dad but the dad angrily tells him off. I think it was implied that the dad had rejected his services several times?
Avatar the last Airbendeer is NOT an anime and Aang is NOT an anime character. Its inspired by anime but is not itself anime. Its like calling the Powerpuff Girls an anime just because they have a chibi style look
I don't remember much about watching this movie as a kid (even though I know I did), but I vividly remember playing the game boy game that was based on it! It was back when I wasn't good at video games, so I don't even remember making it past the beginning lol
What movie are you most looking forward to in 2023?
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Oppenheimer & Dune: Part 2?
Spiderverse and guardians
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
"Transformers: Rise of the Beasts"
The Barbie movie. We're gonna see Barbie punch a guy.
I find it funny that Hova, an ANT, was a better mother figure to Lucas than his own mother.
Sometimes, the best parents are the ones you’d least likely expect.
Well that's because she didn't treat him like a baby
In my experience that isn’t too surprising
Oh,the irony.
Just realized that your profile picture is Oscar from Artspear Entertainment's Super Bowl saga
"Jimmy Neutron would've taken that burp and turned it into a gun."
Actually, the burp canon was Timmy's invention and he used it AGAINST Jimmy.
Oh shit the King of the Hill guy!
Joking aside love your stuff. I often have it in the background while I’m working on college assignments.
Aaaaactually!
Well Timmy wished for it, he didn’t invent shit
@@matthewgallaway3675 He came up with the idea for it, so technically he did invent it
@@muddashucka9743 Plus Jimmy believed timmy was smarter than he looked and the "fairies" were just advanced holographic AI he invented.
Heck he didn't even believe santa was real, well until he electrocuted him.
I'll give it this: this has the best bug character designs of all the ant movies. I especially like how the eyes are human-like enough to be expressive but also recognizably insect eyes, and how the wasps are less anthropomorphic to make them more intimidating.
Those wasps could honestly give Hopper and his gang a run for their money. I mean, they're chromed iridescent, etched, and gilded for god's sake, as if their exoskeletons are made of metal instead of chitin.
It also had a pretty neat worldbuilding... which was ruined by it needing to be a kids film with the main focus on a human and learning a lesson.
Zoc and Hova are phenomenal designs
Also the best animation. It's still on par with Monsters VS Aliens but still.
Totally.
The frog stomach scene was the only scene of the movie that burned into my repressed memories. Never have I been both fascinated and horrified of seeing intricately detailed anatomy
It was also the only funny moment, in my opinion. I wish, tho, The Critic could have said something about the ending of that scene when Lucas and Zoc talks about the Aclca Root, Lucas cheers "Hands in the air" (maybe could have thrown and Aang clip there) the fly celebrates his freedom but then within a second is eaten again and says "Awww crap"
Oh that was the best scene
It definitely had an influence on some folks...
@Zacharias Mitchell the 26th Primarch Oh, you mean "Vore"? Yeah, it's kinda unusual.
Don't forget the disembodied head!
am I the only one who absolutely loves how whenever they finish a movie involving Nicholas Cage they do the Looney Tunes ending thing?
No I love the callbacks too!
Freddy vs Jason and It Chapter 1 had the best ones.
No, i do to
I love it too, they're so funny!
It's not just the Looney Tunes ending, it's the Halloween Looney Tunes ending from the IT (2017) review.
The funny thing about the "Dead. Dead. His body's lasagna." part is he actually wouldn't be hurt by the fall there. The smaller a creature is, the less of an impact they take from falls. It's why squirrels can fall out of trees and land fine. At that size, even reaching terminal velocity would do no worse than a couple scrapes.
Honestly the more Nicolas Cage reviews the better life is
Just don't limit him to family friendly films.
@@somerandolad Good thing he was in Spiderman into the Spider-verse.
NC, do Vampire's Kiss plz. It's recognized as the Citizen Kane of Joseph Minion movies. (What's "After Hours" by Martin Scorsese?!)
I want to see his new movie on revenge but Western style 😃
NICOLAS CAGE MONTH 2!!!
(Please do "Mom & Dad" and "Mandy". Nicolas Cage goes Full Cage in these films.)
Fun fact: If an ant doesn't bring food to the colony, and just fucks around, the queen will maul it
Eusocial insects are probably some of the worst species to give you a lesson about the importance of diversity. Zoc would have probably given him a lecture on eugenics, instead.
Although I guess it'd just be ripping off Maya the Bee, then.
Kinda like what happens if a bee comes back drunk. The hive rips off it's limbs and leaves it to die. Insects, man. Life is tough.
Yep. Don't do your job, you get terminated. Literally.
Well she will basicly substitute the missing food with that ant that didnt do its job seems fair enougg
Zoc probably could have taught him about hormones given how bad they both are with their hormones.
I mainly remember this movie because the first time I watched it I really liked Zoc's voice and thought "wow his voice actor must be really cute!"
And it was Nicholas Cage.
My sister likes to remind me I thought Nick Cage's voice was cute every time we watch it.
hey, that man is a fucking snack and a half alright
Well you're right, Nicolas Cage is cute
You trying to say Coppola's scrote-squeezin's don't clean up nice?
Are you saying that Nicolas Cage isnt the most beautiful cutest hottest human being to ever walk in this earth?
I mean, not uncute?
This may not be a great movie (especially because it caused Jimmy Neutron to be cancelled), but I think the message that Zoc tells Lucas is very profound and probably resonates with a lot of people.
This caused neutron to be cancelled?
Well technically if Ant Bully preformed better at the box office it wouldn’t have been cancel because Jimmy Neutron’s tv budget was tied to the box office. The original budget for the series was Jimmy Neutron’s box office return from the film’s success.
@@douglasmitchum1488 Yes.
DNA Productions, the animation company who made the series and film closed after this film bombed.
@@RYMAN1321 to quote Prince Naveen “sad, but true.”
Wait! It's not a great movie?!
GODDAMMIT!!!
I loved this movie as a kid even more than bug's life. I think it was the idea of shrinking down and living as a ant that interested me more than the conflict in a bug's life.
Honey I shrunk the kids did that concept better than all the others, though.
Never saw Ant Bully, but I LOVE your Ecco the Dolphin profile picture!
@@carlotta4th I get what you mean, but that movie was more about surviving being shrunken to the size of an ant, instead of living among them.
A Bug's Life is one of my favorite Pixar movies
@@carlotta4th I agree with you. What I liked about the Ant Bully was all the small inventive details, like the glasses Lucas makes, the pods that shoot sticky stuff they use to carry him to the hive, the whole ant training sequence and the fact they have a wizard. Plus animated movies were more visually appealing to me as a kid, this one reminds me of another movie that blended 3d animation with live-action called Arthur and the Invisibles, now that movie was full of the stuff I like.
Fun Fact:
Zac Tyler Eisen was one the most ironic youngest child actors that he is very good at Voice acting but only for CG Animation and also Anime-Handwriting on the Two TV Network programs such as Nickelodeon & Nick Jr.
1. He did the voice of Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series
2. He was the voice Pablo the Penguin from The Backyardigans that used to be on Nick Jr. for a really really long time.
Oh God I have long suppressed the memory of The Backyardagains
Funny. Pablo was my favorite Backyardigan
@@DrDolan2000 Me Too,
Pablo The Penguin is one of my favorite funniest characters from my childhood.
I never recognized him in The Backyardigans. That's interesting to know.
@@DrDolan2000mine too
Jim saying, "Just do it," and looking dejected is the exact face I've seen my boss make, 12 hours into a 16 hour shift, as we're asked to do something absolutely unnecessary, and I feel that.
That would make an amazing GIF.
How is there even such a thing as a 16 hour shift?
@Alistair Winter you get into things like the medical field, firefighting, military, and just in general ones that respond to emergencies, and 16 hours is possible. I've had 24-hour shifts, but you get 24 off. Tho some are "16 hour shifts" but really they're a 24, and you do it again after 3-4 hours of sleep.
@@darkdeath5550 Ah wow. People who are able to do that are quite amazing.
It took me literally more than a decade to find out Nicolas Cage is in this movie, and I've seen it millions of times
Same here. I even saw National Treasure 2 a couple years into watching Antbully frequently. Took me until high school---around the time The Croods came out, which is probably what led me to finding out. It was even more exciting for me because Zoc is my favorite character, and his voice is mostly the reason for that.
It's funny how the Critic mentioned that they didn't want to confuse the exterminator from Ant Bully with the exterminator from Over the Hedge because those movies came out close to each other. At that time I was working at a movie theater and the Over the Hedge advertisement showcasing the exterminator was left up because management thought that it was the exterminator from Ant Bully.
@AJ Manley The bald guy? The one that goes "REPTILE..."
@AJ Manley The dude that sets up all the death traps in the lady's lawn
the name's DWAYNE DE LA FONTAIN
Any bully is like a Cartoon Network movie. You don’t go out of your way to see it, but you don’t mind watching it if it’s on.
Now that you mentioned it Cartoon Network aired some Ant Bully shorts back in the day when the movie released.
If there was an Ant Bully show, does that mean it would have been on Cartoon Network considering it’s part of Warner Brothers?
Both Nic Cage and Lily Tomlin went on to lend their voices to one of the greatest animated (Or otherwise) films of all time (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)
When do you think he will review that movie?
I think about May-June this year would be timely, around the time Across the Spider-Verse comes out in theaters
To think that the latter was the voice of Miss Frizzle in The Magic School Bus. Man, she’s come a long way.
And Brad Bird wanted her to voice Edna Mode in The Incredibles; she turned down the part feeling Bird himself’s voice better suited the character
@@leoruenes457 Really? I had no idea.
The "yellow rain" line is the only part of this that stuck in my brain for 15 years.
And the scene where he finds out what "honeydew" is.
FUN FACT: The reason why studios release their crappy films in January is because they know that's the month people aren't going to theaters after spending most of their disposable income on the December holidays
18:32 I almost thought that Dougs lights went out and we see his eyeballs for a split second here.
omg, the ant is composed in the scene. you can see in those frames that he has an outline while the phone gets lifted, you can also see artificial darkening on him to simulate a shadow is on him from the phone. they used the same trick the sorting hat in harry potter.
Honestly I’m pretty sure Nicolas Cage as a Ant is a lot of nightmare fuel
Until I looked him up after finding out here that he did the main character's voice in this movie, I never knew that Aang's voice actor was actually around the same age as Aang himself when doing the voice. That was a pretty impressive job for someone so young.
During my time in college I actually met one of the animators that worked on ant bully. I got to see some of the more in depth workings of the animation.
That's it, it was fun tho.
Lucky you. What did you learn about the movie’s development?
Something else that the Roddy McDowall and Ricardo Montalban roles have in common is that they were the final movie roles for both actors. ...Both highly acclaimed actors went out voicing ants...
These two big legends both went out as the smallest creatures in CG animated movies.
If I had a nickel for every mid-2000s kids movie with an exterminator character played by a Spider-Man villain, I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Is that you Doofenshmirtz?
Wow, I remember getting this movie from Blockbuster. As far as -ant- anthropomorphic bug movies go, The Ant Bully was among the better ones. I remember there also being a few deleted scenes that give a little more depth. For instance, the exterminator was really annoyed at Lucus's dad because he was the only one in the entire neighborhood who refused to buy his services, giving an actual reason for his entire scene with Lucus later. I vaguely remember another one showing his parents at their anniversary dinner, and his mother is feeling horrible about not being more attentive of what's really troubling him.
Why does everybody act like there's a million of those? I can only think up of three ant movies including this one.
@@DarthBiomech
And the other two are obviously "Antz" and "A Bug Life." As for others, nothing comes to mind.
@@DarthBiomechRight??? Am I going crazy...
Is is the one where he took of a fly's wings and then crushed it with the book he was reading?
@@systemshocker2875 I was thinking of the one where the exterminator was at the house talking to Lucus's dad before they left on their trip; really cements just how creepy he is with the implied stalking leading into when he approaches Lucus later.
I honestly loved the art style of this film.
I will give it credit for interesting and unique designs for the ants and their colony!
The animation was made by the same people who did Jimmy Neutron.
The ants looked really nice.
Don't you mean ANT style?
Definitely a better style than Antz or A Bugs's Life for me. The latter couldn't bother to give everyone six limbs (which I was really anal about as a kid) and the former's design was straying into uncanny valley territory because of the old CGI quality of the time. This film was also able to be more true to a real ant's proportions while making them more visually pleasing to look at at the same time.
I especially love how every adult ant has unique body markings, especially on the elders. Hova in particular has head markings that resemble the simple eyes on an ant's forehead. And speaking of such, the eyes of all the ant characters are a nice touch too, being human-like irises and pupils overlayed onto what are still clearly compound eyes.
Even the non-anthropomorphic wasps got some love; their carapaces are friggin' chromed iridescent and gilded with etchings everywhere! I thought that level of detail was pretty astounding for the time.
I kind wish critic went into how under developed the exterminator was as an antagonist as in the deleted scenes he actually had more scenes in the movie that explained more of his motivations. One scene for example shows he did in fact talk to Lucas’s father and bragged about how he has complete control over the entire neighborhood accept his house and his father generally finding him too creepy to make a deal with hence why he approached Lucas later when he was by himself. He also apparently killed Zoc’s entire family that lived in a different ant hill and overall is a psychopath that enjoys killing bugs like in one deleted scene where he catches flies just to rip their wings off to force them to live on the ground and add their wings to his collection.
Oh that is freaky! Especially the wing bit, that's straight up serial killer behavior!
Ooh, sounds interesting. I would have loved to see some of that stuff in the movie. The part where he killed Zoc’s family sounds so fascinating.
Ah I loved this movie as a kid! It came out when I was 9, and I saw it with my dad. Brings back great, fun memories. I know it isn’t the best but it’s hardly the worst.
I like the how the ants' eyes are a combination of both simple eyes and compound eyes. A clever way of bringing a little bit of realism into stylization.
Underwater (2020) is an underrated January sci-fi movie that was unfortunately bogged down by its January release. January movies usually aren’t good, but this was a fantastic exception.
Like the only January movie that I can think of is strange magic and Paddington and that’s literally because I rewatched cellspex review a couple hours ago
Kirsten Stewart was wicked good in that film. Sad that she was overlooked for awards season that year.
Underwater is such an underrated movie. As a fan of Lovecraft, I love that the monsters ended up bring revealed as Cthulhu and the Deep Ones. I wish we had more films based off his works.
I love Underwater!!!!!
fun fact first movie i shock Kristen Stewar can act
I have to admit with The Ant Bully, Ferngully, and Epic, there are a lot of animated movies with humans being shrunken down and being introduced to a bug-type world.
Don't forget Arthur and the Invisibles. And the two sequels.
@@NeoConnor1 I didn't see that one.
What about The Nutcracker Prince?
@@brytilaar Haven't seen that one.
The Ant Bully is my favourite one.
Way to start off your new year with a bang Nostalgia Critic this is an absolutely fun review and I wish you and your friends and family a Happy New Year ❤️
Never saw this movie, but just from watching the review I can definitely say I like the character designs for the bugs much better in this than something like A Bug's Life. The characters having 6 legs and at least sort of moving like real insects is a lot more interesting to me, and even the facial features are a lot more bug-like.
14:33 scary how on point that sounds.
18:09 I'd watch that movie, no matter how long or short it was.
23:06 I WISH rounding up an army to take down my bullies was that quick and easy.
When I watched this back in elementary school, I legit got temporarily traumatized by the scene with the lice. Mainly because I had no idea what lice was and it scared the everliving crap out of me
It also makes zero sense that an exterminator would even HAVE them like....what? lol
@@SukiNoKoe idk- he looks like the kind of guy that doesn’t bathe. So I find it believable.
@@RogueT-Rex8468 fair point....but I mean...I'd expect exterminators of all people to be clean since their job is CLEANING. xD the writers are being dumb.
I unfortunately got lice in elementary school, so yeah, you were right to be traumatized.
I agree with you, Julia Roberts here sounds like she actually cares and works in the role. She phoned it in in Ocean's 11 where everyone else was clearly having a ball, and I've never thought she was that great of a beauty.
Wow NC is starting to review all of the 2000s movies I grew up with 😂
I miss the early 2000s
Nostalgia evolves
That feeling when you realize 2001 was 22 years ago.
What about Spider-man movies?
I hope he reviews Spirit : Stallion of the Cimarron.
One of my favorite animated films ever.
15:21 Well when you think about the physics, Lucas is actually the size of an ant. He's only falling a few centimeters to the ground. Actually, he could fall from a table and he'd be fine.
The "sleeping with eyes open" comment just makes me even more desperately want Doug to review the Adventures of Tintin. It has the exact same thing, but with a hilarious explanation for why.
I used to watch the older cartoon and read the Herge comics in college, so I was interested in the CGI movie. I started it but never finished it and I don’t know why, but I recently stumbled onto “The Adventures of Tintin” playing on Pluto TV (funny enough around that scene!) and I was legitimately impressed with how good it was. Not only does the movie look absolutely stunning, but it is altogether a super fun watch, with really clever direction and action. It’s also really fucking funny, with Andy Serkis absolutely stealing the show as Captain Haddock.
3:15 You know, aside from the fact that THIS MOVIE IS THE EXACT REASON WHY THE JIMMY NEUTRON TV SHOW ENDED BECAUSE THE PEOPLE BEHIND IT WENT BANKRUPT BECAUSE OF IT!
I have a vivid memory of this movie. My family took a trip to Tennessee when i was 12 and I probably watched this 3 times a day for some reason. We’d go out and do something fun like an amusement park but when we got back to the cabin, BAM, ant bully time. I’ve never had the desire to watch it again after that so it’s just this little anomaly of a film within a very specific memory of mine. Super Nostalgic.
Jim did a great job encapsulating Rob’s vibe!
Remember finding that scene with the exterminator on TV as a kid. Of course, my 11 year old self thought "...the hell is that"
I had a brief obsession with ants as a kid, so I knew their organs were in weird places.
Considering that the Jimmy Neutron TV show ended in 2006 when DNA Productions went bankrupt, I'd like to say this little factoid;
Apparently there was going to be a season 4, that focused more on Evil Jimmy possibly returning and Jimmy and Cindy's relationship. Of course that never happened and a lot of fans felt like that had it continue with that premise, it might've worn itself out.
So basically The Ant Bully indirectly saved Jimmy Neutron's legacy, at least until when Planet Sheen came out.
this is really cool to know, except you forgot to mention how planet sheen indirectly saved the entirety of jimmy neutron's legacy
I mean, I would have liked to have seen it, always liked “Jimmy Neutron”. Would have liked to have seen what would have been done with Evil Jimmy.
@@Fang_Tooth please, explain, HOW did Planet Sheen saved Jimmy Neutron's legacy?
@@kalexkhan5086 By being annoyingly memorable.
We don’t talk about planet sheen.
Fact: According to some online websites (including Wikipedia), shortly before the release of The Ant Bully (2006), most of the employees at DNA Productions were laid off and the studio was closed (as the result of their second and final film to be made after Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)), which was the main reason why Jimmy Neutron was cancelled and that we even never got a fourth season to Jimmy Neutron as well.
And this movie would also be the last film acting role of Ricardo Montalbán (from films and TV shows including Fantasy Island (the original TV show from 1977 to 1984), Star Trek (the original TV series and The Wrath of Khan (1982)), two of the Planet of the Apes film from the early 1970s, and the Spy Kids franchise), before his death on January 14, 2009.
The film that sadly killed DNA productions .
“Hi! I’m Paul.” 🐵
A film can’t kill a studio, wiseass.
Yeah, it sucks that they canceled the films including Neopet movie, Ring-Co, and Smart.
@@rogue7723 Aaaand I'm Javert!
I thought planet sheen did that
19:37 I mean, the three bugs did have their own shorts, before the movie released.
Another Fun Fact about this strange film is: This is the first theatrically released animated movie for Jake T. Austin (Nicky) and Nicolas Cage (Zoc).
It’s been years since I saw this movie (I saw it in theatres and I think I had the DVD of it). Which character is Nicky? (I haven’t started watching the Nostalgia Critique review yet.)
Oh That's Jake T Austin!? Holy hell...
I started the review but started scrolling through comments early on.
Okay but the score "Bullies and Sweetrocks" from the movie itself is really beautiful if you listen to it, to me that was the one redeeming thing from it!
Fun Fact: The role of Mommo, Lucas' grandmother, was originally voiced by Shirley MacLaine. During production, the role was re-cast with Lily Tomlin, and some Mommo shots had to be reanimated once Mommo's dialogue was re-recorded. Similarly, some of the shots with Fugax had to reanimated when Alan Cumming was replaced with Bruce Campbell.
It's been a while since I saw such a desinterested Nostalgia Critic review. Fits the January theme I guess. At least I got a laugh out of the sponsorship bit.
Also, I'm kinda surprised he hardly even mentioned the scenes with Tiffany (Lucas' sister). Lots of foot fetish, giantess fantasy... even got some coverage on DeviantArt.
I liked that content a lot. Since i have a crush on Tiffany.
And I just love a lot her giantess scene on the movie.
but praised the fatal vore scene :)
Well yeah, but it's inside a frog so I'm not really into it. 😑
@@jman2634I too liked Tiffany a lot. Also, I just recently discovered she was voiced by *Allison Mack* (Chloe from "Smallville"), yet another one of my juvenile crushes.
Happy New Year Critic. I think this quote sums it up "Who knows? It's only just out of reach down the block on the beach, maybe tonight."- West Side Story
I remember getting really pissed off about this movie because they said the ants don’t deserve to be bullied because they never ever go in the house and all the while I had ants all over the inside of my house anytime a crumb gets dropped and feeling like this movie was just ant propaganda to make people let their guard down.
Honestly Ants need more respect and justice in general
Wildlife big or small should be respected provided they don't intrude on human turf.
+@@zacharycardon2353 Which is exactly what ants do. I had some in my just yesterday
Don't get me started on roaches... 😣
@@zacharycardon2353 ants evolved millions of years before humans did and greatly outnumber us. If anything we're on their turf
Am I the only one who thinks that Nic Cage put more effort playing an ant wizard than he did playing a live action wizard?
I feel like he does better at voice acting. Since he's got such a distinctive face that everyone knows, and as far I've been able to tell his characters don't require a ton of makeup, you can't help but only see Nicolas Cage when he's in a live action role. When I saw The Croods, I recognized his voice, but I eventually forgot it was Nicolas Cage playing Grug. Same happened with Zoc after I found out it was him.
The Ant Bully is one of my all time favorite mid 2000's animated films!
While not on my favorites list I do remember liking the movie when I was young
@@redholm same here, always funny to look back at some of these movies
Why?
@@0816M3RC little name of nostalgia Critic because people like nostalgia
Same
17:08 Imagine the movie ended their. That will scar kids for life.
The kid here was actually voiced by Aangs original voice actor. Just a fun fact.
Yup, mentioned in the review as well
Awesome performance from him.
How did I not catch that he is so underrated
Even funnier, if you look at the VAs for Lucas and his bully at the start of the film...
It's Pablo being bullied by his replacement VA.
I knew his voice sounded familiar
I will always hold a vendetta against this movie for being the reason why Jimmy Neutron was cancelled before it could get a 4th season.
I thought Jimmy Neutron had that big villain finale ?
I don’t know…. The premise didn’t sound particularly good. It may have been too generic. Might have been an indirect blessing it was cancelled.
My only experience with this film? When I was in middle school I asked for a copy of the game “Bully” created by GTA’s creators to basically be GTA set in a high school. Instead of that I got the video game adaptation of this all because the 2 games share one word in the title
Being specific is worth a fortune.
Your Birthday or Christmas must have been the best one ever for getting that
This film made me scared of liquids going into my ear. Also the scene inside the frog was terrified me.
You know the tragic irony of comparing Ricardo Monatlban in this to Roddy McDowell in A Bug's Life? Both films were the respective actors' last films. The only difference is Montalban lived to see Ant Bully while McDowell died before A Bug's Life came out.
24:39 "Yes sir, it's a standard Muppet finale. If you don't know how to end it, go out with a bang." -Jim Henson's test pilot of Johnny Hart's Wizard of Id
It's getting weird we're now in the early 2000s kid movies people barely remember
This is a movie that I'd watch over Antz any day. Anatomically accurate ants, for once, and a pretty good story with memorable characters, second. I honestly never even remembered that Nicholas Cage and Julia Roberts voiced these characters, I just knew I really liked the ant lady in this movie.
I remember seeing that movie back in 2006 as a little kid. I almost forgot about it
Same, I thought it was something I made up honestly, like some weirder version of Antz and bugs life.
Tho this movie reminds me of the game "Grounded".
oh my god same i saw it in my kindergarten class around 2010
Same here. It was on TV one Saturday night and it was pretty unremarkable. I just played my gameboy the whole way through.
Of all the things I would've loved to see in this movie, it would be more of the jovial beetle, the grouchy fly, and the gloomy glowworm. It would've been awesome to have them have actual names and maybe a closer relationship with the main cast; they could've been friends with Hova and/or Zoc outside the colony and, despite their differences, be true companions who helped out in the final battle against Stan Beals and give Lucas a warm farewell as he was brought back to his original size. That's how I think the movie could've been improved. Or maybe have a bug antagonist instead of a human one.
8:09
So I actually own the DVD of this film and of the things I would do is look at the extra stuff in bonus features. One of the things that was on the disc were cut content that included a scene of the exterminator making the same offer to the dad character. The father declines the offer saying that he was not interested.
While I can see why it was cut due to being apart of a different scene that I felt like didn't need to be included. I do wish they found some way to include the diolauge.
Love how Doug completely glossed over the scene where the kid eats bug poop.
Lucas: "I'm small, we're all small, but together we're big"
I personally think bugs are cool, and I like bug character designs, and whilst these are a bit silly and inconsistent, I still think they look cooler than the designs in Antz, and Bugs Life is not worth comparing to. The ant hill environments look pretty cool as well here.
Inconsistent?
"and Bugs Life is not worth comparing to"
Why?
@@dylansharp8471 From the standpoint of realism, or of having a consistent philosophy in how real bug traits are translated to more human traits. I haven't re-watched this, and I don't care to, so I don't have any examples on hand.
As for A Bugs Life, it obviously has a much sillier design philosophy that cares much less about making the character look interesting and authentic as the insects they are. Hence why the ants in that movie have silly traits like 4 limbs, and have their legs attach to their abdomen instead of thorax, etc. That's very boring to me.
Insects are very alien compared to humans, so I love it when designs do a good job at mediating between that insect nature and human traits we want for relatability. It's a tricky thing to do, in my experience it always ends up coming down to several more arbitrary choices that I'm never super-satisfied with, but that's also part of what's interesting about it. At least movies like Antz and Ant Bully try to preserve a lot of the unique traits of the insect, whereas A Bug's Life will toss out much of the insectoid traits at the drop of a hat.
Another similar comparison is between Disney's Pinocchio and Del Toro's Pinocchio, regarding the cricket. Even as a kid I thought the Disney cricket design was extremely lame, whereas I really like Del Toro's design for the cricket, it looks really cool, because it retains a lot of interesting non-human traits, like a weird head shape, correctly structured body, backwards-jointed legs, etc.
Oh dude, I used to watch this movie all the time as a kid when I was in, like, 2nd grade. This review was a trip down memory lane.
16:42 Yes we would.
I noticed when Nicolas cage is animated he acts normal when he’s in front of a camera he acts like Daffy Duck.
Never had any idea who the cast was until watching this. It's safe to say that the biggest thing holding my attention to this movie when it came out was the fact they added magic.
Technically he would survive that fall at 15:25
Clearly his mass has reduced as well as his size, so the air resistance and impact force would be minuscule.
Terminal velocity for an ant sized object isnt a lot of force.
I actually remember the teaser trailer shorts that just showed Rob Paulson’s bug having small comedic moments with other bugs and almost wishing that was the movie lol
When the one ant said "Groovy" I felt that
I remember watching all of the DVD bonus features as a child, and there's a deleted scene where the exterminator talks to the dad but the dad angrily tells him off. I think it was implied that the dad had rejected his services several times?
Honestly I’m pretty sure this is where the Multiverse takes you
7:46 Is that where JonTrons been this whole time? Hanging out on Ant Bully. smh
Ant-Man was a weird movie, but I enjoyed it as a kid.
Anytime Rob Paulsen is in something I feel like the film gets better lol
Oh god this movie is actually nostalgic
I like to think Ant Bully sank so Bee Movie (which came out a year later) was able to swim.
Man to bomb on a Animated film is pretty hard so respect to these guys
9:07 I don't know why, but hearing Doug say "That's pee!" in the way that he says it gets me chuckling every time
Does Puss in Boots the Last Wish count as Doug's first honest review of 2023?
Yes
17:37
best product placement joke ever
Avatar the last Airbendeer is NOT an anime and Aang is NOT an anime character. Its inspired by anime but is not itself anime. Its like calling the Powerpuff Girls an anime just because they have a chibi style look
Found the Gorillaz joke appropriate when at 22:57 the girl in the right has the 2D pose locked down
I loved this movie so much as a kid
22:08 At least, Paul Giamatti is in character for his role as Chairman Drek 10 years earlier.
17:50 Hail to the King + Bruce Campbell = Boomstick
I love the tries for the candy throwing scene being shown at the end, shows how much work goes into every quick gag
I don't remember much about watching this movie as a kid (even though I know I did), but I vividly remember playing the game boy game that was based on it! It was back when I wasn't good at video games, so I don't even remember making it past the beginning lol
That skit with Meryl Streep in the car was genius!😂