Just as too much sugar makes your stomach hurt, too much cuteness makes your eyes squint.
"Over the Hedge," an animated tale of cute little talking animals whose environment has been invaded by subdivisions, proves that much within the first 20 minutes. At about that point, the frolicking anthropomorphic fun buddy act gets so tiresome, you begin to see the characters not as fuzzy innocents but vile, gremlinlike captors.
This is when you suddenly realize that you're not in for light, snappy entertainment, but a prison sentence that's all the more frightening for how slowly it passes. The yelping laughs of all the little kids around you, delighted by the mindless slapstick, seem to mock your plight. You glance into the tender, mischievous eyes of RJ the Raccoon and see nothing but the cruel abyss. You half hope one of your little ones will tug your shirtsleeve and tell you he has to go to the bathroom. Anything for a respite from the bland nonsense onscreen.
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It used to be standard operating procedure, even in poor kiddie comedies, that writers sate the parents in the audience with a stream of pop-culture-inspired humor. That doesn't quite happen in "Over the Hedge," which seems to hope its entire audience would get caught up in its lowest-common-denominator silliness. The screenplay, like the comic strip by Michael Fry and T. Lewis, takes jabs at suburban materialism and disrespect for nature.
RJ, voiced by Bruce Willis, is the scoundrel ringleader and sole provider of dramatic thrust. After he ruins the food stash belonging to a hibernating bear in a heist gone bad, the growling goliath gives RJ two options: Replace all the food within a week or be killed. RJ tries to save himself by finding an encroached wood surrounded by housing developments and recruiting the unsuspecting animals to raid kitchens and garbage cans until RJ has enough to calm down the bear.
The cast of characters includes neurotic Verne the Turtle (Garry Shandling), the only one who's suspicious of RJ; hyperactive Hammy the Squirrel (Steve Carell); sassy Stella the Skunk (Wanda Sykes); and dippy Ozzie the Possum (William Shatner). Each character seems like a slightly faded copy of something from a better movie, and though the voice actors throw themselves into their roles with pizazz, the effort doesn't help because they have so little interesting to say.
The animal invasions freak out the local homeowners association president, who hires the gadget-wielding pest controller known as the Verminator (Thomas Haden Church) to eliminate the pests. The Verminator's means of war involve "Mission: Impossible"-like laser defense systems, as well as largely ineffective explosive traps that seem as though they come from the same Acme corporation Wile E. Coyote shops.
Lessons of trust, greed and honesty lurk somewhere underneath all the corny sight gags and flat, violent-tinged humor. You sit through the film steaming in your seat, pushed over the edge by "Over the Hedge."
review
Over the Hedge
HH
Rated: PG for some rude humor and mild comic action
Voice cast: Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, Thomas Haden Church
Directors: Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick
Family call: Bland and mostly harmless, it won't hurt your kids.
Running time: 86 minutes
Opens Friday at: Park Place, El Con, Century Park, Foothills, DeAnza, Desert Sky, Uptown
