Over the Hedge

I watched this movie just this weekend. It is about RJ, a wily and self-serving raccoon who, after his unsuccessful attempt of stealing from Vincent the Bear promised to return it to him in a week. Desperate as it his life that’s hanging on the line, RJ ventured out and came to El Rancho Camelot Estates where he met a group of foragers. He then did his damnedest to charm them into stealing food from people who live over the hedge, with these foragers thinking that they were doing the stealing so as to store food when in fact, it was to replace the items that RJ had stolen from Vincent.

The movie was an unexpected surprise and in some scenes, I did not know whether to hate Vincent for his treachery or to love him for his “brilliant” ideas and funny antics to get his hands on what he wants. He was just so amusing!

The entire cast was just as riveting. There’s Verne, the box turtle who was suspicious of RJ’s ulterior motive from the start, Stella the perennially single skunk who would “settle down” if and when she would find a man who did not have a sense of smell (LOL at this one), Hammy the hyperactive squirrel, Ozzie the opossum who’s the master at playing dead and who had a cynic for a daughter named Heather and a whole family of adorable porcupines named Lou, Penny, Spike, Bucky and Quillo.

The “human” characters were just as funny – there’s Gladys Sharp, the neurotic homeowners association president of El Rancho Camelot Estates and the somewhat dumb verminator named Dwayne LaFontant.

The lines are witty and funny, the songs apt and just as meaningful that I was totally riveted. Beneath the laughs though are the more important lessons on family, man’s incessant and insatiable wants (consumerism) and the repercussions to the environment that “development” brings.

This is now officially one of my favorite animated movies.