The Great Insect Store

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John Lassiter, director of Pixar's movie phenomenon Toy Story, has set new standards in computer animation with his next effort, another Disney-released children's epic entitled A Bug's Life. Blending classic Disney story-telling characters, and the mysterious underground world of bugs, he has created a film that can be enjoyed by all audiences and has created another franchise in the process. A Bug's Life is a computerized retelling of the Aesop fable The Ant and the Grasshopper, made as a cartoon short by the one-and-only Walt Disney in the mid-30's. However, A Bug's Life has modernized the story with many new twists and celebrity voices. The story focuses on a colony of ants who seasonally gather food for themselves and a wild gang of rowdy grasshoppers. When bumbling worker-ant Flik (David Foley) destroys the food supply, the angry grasshoppers, lead by the maniacally warped Hopper (Kevin Spacey) threaten to kill the ants if they don't produce a new supply of food by the time they return, an impossible feat. Flik leaves the anthill in search of help in the form of bigger bugs to wage war against the grasshoppers. What he doesn't know is he has actually discovered a group of down-on-their-luck traveling circus insects in need of a job. When the ants realize that their heroes are really circus performers (and the circus bugs realize that these grasshoppers are really big and mean) the situation goes from bad to worse. Ultimately the ants use their large numbers to overcome the grasshoppers.