ANTZ
Crawling with fun, courage, love, and Christian implications.
Should You Watch It?
Yes. ANTZ is a beautiful, superbly animated romantic comedy with an appealing story about individuality, community, courage, and love. The voices and matching caricatures of the cast invite you into an unfamiliar but convincing world.
The film includes some violence, scary moments, and mild foul language. Still, good defeats evil, and the movie offers a thoughtful answer to Z’s struggle between serving the community and pursuing only his own desires: individuals have obligations toward the community, and communities have obligations toward individuals.
If your family is comfortable with the content concerns, ANTZ is worth the trip for viewers ages 8 and up.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESZ is a neurotic worker ant who is tired of conformity and the daily grind. Longing for individuality, he seeks help and unexpectedly meets a beautiful princess.
When the two ants are accidentally ejected from their colony, they face a myriad of obstacles in the outside world. Z must find courage and discover what he owes to the community—and what the community owes to him.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means ANTZ is an excellent film, and the source review calls it a superb piece of computer animation. The animation creates an unexplored yet familiar domain that is convincing and enticing.
The voice performances and matching caricatures of Woody Allen and the rest of the cast strengthen the invitation into this animated world. The film also combines romance, adventure, humor, and a moral conflict about individuality and community into a delightful PG feature.
The Worldview
ANTZ presents a moral worldview in which good defeats evil. Its anti-Communist theme gives a positive role to individuality without treating the community as irrelevant.
Z begins by wanting freedom from conformity and by focusing on his own desires and needs. The film’s solution is more balanced: the individual has obligations toward the community, and the community has obligations toward the individual. Valor, courage, and love ultimately win the day.
The source review describes this as a biblical viewpoint founded on the nature of the Holy Trinity: three persons in one God, providing a divine foundation for both the Many and the One. The film’s moral vision therefore has Christian implications, particularly in its understanding that people belong to one another without losing their individual value.
Scripture likewise describes unity without erasing difference: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Moral worldview of good versus evil & anti-Communist theme with strong, positive implications for Christian theology & philosophy; 7 mild obscenities, 2 mild exclamatory profanities such as “Oh, my God,” a couple mild vulgarities, & a reference to the rear end of an aphid; mild slapstick violence, a fight in an ant saloon, scary war scenes of ant army fighting big termites who spit acid with mild homage to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, ant leader tries to drown colony of ants, & humans use magnifying glass & flyswatter to kill bugs; no sex but one passing reference to “erotic fantasies” & brief discussions about ants having lots of children; no nudity but bugs wear no clothes; alcohol use & drunkenness; and, bureaucrat plots to commit mass murder & become dictator.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Z wants individuality but learns that individuals also have responsibilities to their community. How can you honor both your God-given uniqueness and your responsibilities to others?
Romans 12:4–5 · Philippians 2:3–4The film presents good defeating evil. Where do you see courage and love helping people resist evil in your own life?
Romans 12:21 · 1 Corinthians 16:13–14What should a community owe to the individuals within it? What should individuals owe to their community?
Galatians 6:2 · 1 Peter 4:10Why might conformity be attractive, and when can it become harmful? How does Scripture describe the difference between being transformed and merely following the world?
Romans 12:2 · Ephesians 4:14–15The Final Word
ANTZ is superbly animated, morally thoughtful, and delightful for its intended audience. With mild content concerns in the mix, it offers families a lively story about courage, love, individuality, and community. For viewers ages 8 and up, our answer is WORTH THE TRIP.
