Big hits come in small packages!

This is a truly beautiful, heartwarming, and hilarious tale for young and old alike! Pixar has done an AMAZING job on both the story line and the computer animation to create a miniature world that is truly believable!

PLOT SUMMARY: The story is sort-of a twist on the "ugly duckling" story: Flick is an ant who has inventions and creative ideas that he tries to implement to improve the lives of his ant community. Unfortunately, all his grand ideas seem to end up backfiring, causing more trouble than good. After one major disaster, he goes on a quest to find warrior bugs to help his ant colony defend themselves against a bullying group of grasshoppers. As luck would have it, he mistakenly recruits a group of circus bugs instead, and has to cover his mistake. A great friendship develops between the circus bugs and the ant colony, particularly Flick, and Flick gets a chance to show just how much of a difference one, tiny, very courageous ant can be when he stands up for himself and his colony. (I won't give the ending away! But you are rooting for the good guys!)

This movie really shows off Pixar's creativity in portraying an ant/bug world that mimics (again, VERY creatively!) the human world: a ball cap fashioned out of a leaf, a city scene using cardboard trash and lightning bugs as lamps, you get the picture. Pixar's computer graphics are seamless, and you really are convinced that the scenes are real!

The voice casting is phenomenal. Although the voices are from pretty big stars (Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the Princess Ant, for instance), the casting is done so well that you don't realize it until you see the credits. I think that's an essential element to animations: voices that blend so well with the characters that they don't overpower the animations or distract from the movie.

The humor in the movie is geared to many age groups -- there is some humor for kids, but some that even adults would appreciate -- even some that is sophisticated that mostly adults would "get it." But very little of the humor is crass -- the only part I didn't like was talking in the cantina about a fly ordering the "Pupu Platter" (aka Poo-Poo platter).

I would think this movie is appropriate for Kindergarten and older, although I sometimes watch parts of it with my toddler. There are some scenes that may be a little scary to some sensitive kids (the grasshoppers are bullies, and pretty mean; there's even a scene where Flick gets beaten up and gets a black eye.), so if your young kids are sensitive in nature, you might want to preview it first.

However, the moral of the story is excellent -- be true to yourself and try your best -- everyone has something to offer the community, if given a chance!