Over the Hedge: A Must See

Simply DreamWorks’ Over the Hedge does just that: going over the deep end for hilarious events and wonderful animation. Over the Hedge starts where RJ the raccoon goes into Vincent’s cave to take some food. Or the entire stash. When RJ is caught and the food is lost, Vincent gives RJ within six days to replace everything, or he will eat RJ. As RJ tries to conjure up a plan to escape the bear’s jaws, he stumbles onto a group of critters with a problem of their own. It is time to find food, but half the forest is gone due to suburban construction while the critters were hibernating. Also a hedge was put up during that time period. This leads RJ to get his plans rolling, and where the fun begins.

Since DreamWorks’ Shrek, the animation studio had troubles to provide good storylines and strong plots. In observation, the studio has failed to come up with projects that would not resemble a likeness or a mock of Pixar (A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo). For those movies that did ended up as distasteful ideas with multiple pop culture jokes and huge named stars to save them. However, that does not seem to work for computer animation. Other than Shrek, Shrek 2, and Madagascar, DreamWorks tend to miss. With Over the Hedge, they were able to score a hit.

Based off some characters of the popular syndicated comic strip, Over the Hedge provided animation that tends to show growth from DreamWorks’ previous movies. Including Shrek. The detail work for the animals was greatly visibly. The fur for Vincent and RJ, as well as for Stella the skunk. Also the needles for the porcupine family were well done. The lighting and shading brought realism to the characters for both animals and humans in the film. However, I felt that the humans could have been done a little better. DreamWorks tended to focus more on the animals and the main two human characters than focus on the others.