Over the Hedge

—1. Overview
—2. Cast and Crew
—3. Photo Pages
—4. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—5. Posters (animated movies)
—6. Production Notes (pdf)
—7. Spiritual Connections
—8. Presentation Downloads

My biggest flaw as a critic is that I am extremely PIXAR biased when it comes to CG movies. Nothing beats them, Nothing, comes close. Their detail and story making process allows them to create amazing movies, one after the other. DreamWorks is second on the CG list with amazing movies like Shrek and Shrek 2, then they made (or copied from The Wild, I don’t know which one came first) Madagascar. Thus ruining the near perfect streak of animated films. So you can imagine my upturned nose and folded arm posture as I am sitting thru the constant array of previews for three less then PIXAR CG films before Over the Hedge actually played… and then it happened…Over the Hedge played.

Over the Hedge is based on the comic book by Michael Fry and T. Lewis. It involves several wildlife animals who live in the wilderness just behind a suburban neighborhood, and need to rely on stealing from humans to gather food. It stars Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, Bruce Willis, and William Shatner.

This movie totally took me by surprise. There were about 10 people in the movie theater that night. Everyone else was at The Da Vinci Code. All ten people were laughing harder then a whole theater full of people. This movie was so incredibly funny. Let me say this again This Movie was FUNNY. This review is probably coming off as scattered and un organized because every time I try to think of something to write about, I start laughing at some of the scenes in this movie. Not many movies make you laugh a day later.

Are there awards for voice actors, because I honestly believe that Steve Carell who played Hammy did one of the best voice acting jobs I have ever seen in any Animated Movie, far above any PIXAR film...as much as it saddens me to say that.

However, as funny as this movie is, as entertaining as this movie is, as sure as I am going to see it in theaters again and buy the DVD, the story itself is not that different from other stories, it's nothing we have never seen before, it's not incredibly original. But it does parallel one popular bible story, and that would be the Garden of Eden.

RJ the raccoon has an underhanded plan of his own. He tries to convince the other animals to just taste the human’s food; it's so much better then what you have. Once you try this you'll never go back. Don't you want to eat like the humans eat?

Sound familiar? RJ who has his own selfish desires and plans tries to get the other animals to just taste what he has tasted. He tells them how much better it is, exactly like Satan did in the Garden of Eden. Verne the turtle was the conscious of the group...He tried to warn the other animals that taking the humans food was trouble, but the other animals didn’t want to listen. The food was just too good to pass up.

Just like Adam and Eve…

This films humor is unexpected, it contains over the top, original Looney Tunes style comedy, not seen since the original WB cartoons. This is a big deal for DreamWorks; there is life after Shrek...

I am making two HUGE predictions about this movie. Number One, after they hype of The Da Vinci Code, this movie will be number one. Why did DreamWorks decide to hide this film among they hype of The Code? And number two; it will have a sure place on my DVD shelf, relatively close but not quite next to my PIXAR films.

— Overview