Stars: voices of: Sylvester Stallone, Gene Hackman, Woody Allen
If you want to teach your kids about what’s going on in Yugoslavia right now, rent “Antz” and tell them it’s very similar to this.
General Mandible (voiced by Gene Hackman) is a little like Yugoslav President Milosevic. He’s trying to expand his realm and at the same time kill off the rest of his people, the worker ants, who he has deemed unworthy of an existence. In the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, the worker ants would be the Ethnic Albanians. And that’s how the term “ethnic cleansing” comes in to play.
Now, the warrior ant named Weaver (voiced by Sylvester Stallone), and worker ant Z (voiced by Woody Allen) would be considered NATO because they’re the ones trying to stop the slaughter. And Princess Bala (Sharon Stone) is Madeleine Albright, America’s Secretary of State, serving as a United Nations representative because she is the emissary who tells her mother, the Queen (all the European nations) to listen to NATO.
In the end, Z and Weaver save the day (with help from the General’s right hand man – voiced by Christopher Walken). And the lowly worker ant Z and Prince Bala live happily ever after. Meaning NATO and the UN will someday come to terms with life in the big world. One should only hope.
Lotta says: the movie is cute, but is the word “bitchin’ really appropriate in a kid’s film? And Z would be a lot cuter if I didn’t keep picturing Woody Allen every time Z opened his mouth.