A colony of peaceful, industrious little creatures is ripped off by marauders from afar. Ants and grasshoppers. That too. But in conspiratorial hindsight one might see A Bug's Life, the first feature from John Lasseter and his Pixar whizzes since their 1995 computer-generated hit Toy Story, as the company's rearview metaphor for its battle with DreamWorks' Antz. That similar computer-animated cartoon was conceived after the Pixar pic but released before it. It's bug-eat-bug in Hollywood's animation wars.
Is there room for two? Yes, when the "second" movie is as rich and rewarding as A Bug's Life. Its design work is so...