BY MATT KINNE
What separates you from opportunity? What are you hungry
for? What will fill that longing in your belly? Food? Thrills? Comfort?
Or is it something more? RJ the Raccoon discovers the answers to
all these questions in the new DreamWorks computer animated comedy
OVER THE HEDGE.
RJ
(voiced by Bruce Willis) is a down on his luck, loner raccoon
who is just trying to survive. When an effort to snatch a snack
from a vending machine fails, he sneaks into a bear cave and
steals a red wagon full of human snack goodies. Vincent the bear
(voiced by Nick Nolte) isn’t too happy about RJ’s
intrusion and proceeds to make a snack out of RJ. In the tussle,
the wagon rolls out onto a highway and gets hit by an RV, smashing
all the food to smithereens. Vincent demands that RJ restore
the entire food stash (including the wagon) within a week, or
else no more RJ. So, needing to score some quick food fast, RJ stumbles into a
park where he meets a rag-tag group of critters including a tentative
turtle named Verne (Gary Shandling), a father/daughter possum team
(William Shatner/Avril Lavigne), a hyperactive squirrel (Steve
Carell) a sassy skunk (Wanda Sykes) and a trio of porcupines. They
all discover a great big hedge dividing them from home and who
knows what. Luckily, RJ knows all about what is over the hedge
and begins to illuminate the parkland gang on the wonders of suburbia. RJ gives a great monologue on the suburbs being a veritable food
factory, where the humans only live to eat. So, in slick fashion,
RJ mobilizes his new friends into a strike force out to collect
and gather human food. (Little do they know, RJ has plans to take
it all and give it away to Vincent.) Despite lots of close calls,
they are able to collect quite a bit of food, but not without one
angry homeowner calling a pest control company on them to destroy
them for good. The ending climaxes in an airborne ride for RJ and Verne, a fight
with a homeowner and the pest control worker, and a big bear brawl
with one angry Vincent. The
greatest lesson RJ learns (as do we the audience) is that community
is just as important to survival as food. In fact, given the
opportunity to merely survive alone or live together in community,
it’s always preferable to be with others. You
and I were made to live in community. In Christ, there is no
such thing as a “long ranger.” We all need each
other, not only for physical things (like giving each other food
and services) but for spiritual things (like fellowship and mutual
encouragement). Even before man was made, God lived in community
with the Father, son and Holy Spirit mutually giving to one another. Like the other DreamWorks animated movie SHREK and SHREK 2, OVER
THE HEDGE has uniquely-realized, fun, sassy characters. (It is
only slightly less irreverent than the SHREK movies.) A large part
of the movie involves a sort of R-rated gangster movie sensibility,
where heists, double crosses and death threats loom. However, unlike
many nihilistic gangster movies, this movie resolves on a life
affirming, positive note. You
don’t have to fear what is over the hedge. But, you
don’t have to steal in order to get it either. In Christ,
you can find all that you need: food, fellowship, fun, and family. |
