Dreamworks Animation Studios either produces movies that are hit or miss. There is no in between. They started early off, copying whatever Pixar did. When "A Bug's Life" became a monster hit in the box office, Dreamworks slapped together "Antz," which was not so clever and wasn't half as entertaining.

Sure, then Dreamworks struck gold by turning the lousy childrens book "Shrek" into a phenominal and groundbreaking movie that has become a classic. But, soon following came films like "Shark Tale" which reminded me a heck of alot of "Finding Nemo."

Madagascar was pretty good, but now there's a big controversy about weather or not the idea was stolen from Disney's "The Wild." This time, however, Dreamworks came out on top.

Now, Dreamworks has brought us another funny and ORIGINAL film called "Over the Hedge" which stars a group of animals desperate to find food to last them throughout the upcoming winter.

RJ a racoon, (voiced by Bruce Willis) who has gotten on the bad side of an angry bear, (Nick Nolte) needs to find a wagon full of food by the next full moon or he will be killed. Terrified, RJ decides to recrute nearby forrest animals to help him gather the food from suburbia.

These animals include a skepitical turtle named Vern (Gary Shandling), an over-energized squirrel (Steve Carrel), a family of propcupines (the father is played by Eugene Levy), a skunk with an attitude (Wanda Sykes), a possum (William Shatner) who believes the only way to get things done is to play dead, and his embarrassed teenaged daughter (Avril Lavigne).

When the films humor worked, it REALLY worked, but I felt that there was not enough of it. Each time Hammy the squirrel came on screen you knew something hysterical was going to happen, but there wasn't enough of him.

The movie sometimes wound down into a more dramatic tone of things and the humor almost came to a dead stop before the writers snuck in a new joke to bring you back into the story.

I did really enjoy this movie, it just didn't go above and beyond my expectations. It was what I expected and i expected good things from it, so I give it "thumbs up."

Also, in case you haven't noticed, this is my 100th blog entry. Just thought I'd let you know.

Thanks for reading

-Mike

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