As everybody in the world should know, I’m a great friend of ants, and of insect-kind in general, except when I’m eating smarties. Why? Because ants are cool. Ants chop down forests with their bare teeth, build gigantic fortresses out of them, and farm fungus on what’s left. The only way they could possibly be cooler is if they did all that using Lego, or maybe underwater. Point is: ants deserve your respect, and you would be wise to give it to them come the apocalypse.

Anyway, I watched Antz the other day. I generously give it: better than expected!

I’d always thought this was a cheap knockoff of A Bug’s Life, being released at the same time, and by a rival studio. When Shark Tale came out right after Finding Nemo, I said (to myself, privately, because there was nobody there at the time) “Oh yeah, this is just Dreamworks ripping off Pixar again, like with Antz” and mocked it mercilessly (again, to myself, privately, because nobody likes to hear that sort of thing).

And so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself still watching Antz 30 minutes after having started. The most important thing to realise for any prospective Antz-watcher, is that the title is a pun, not just a boardroom-jerk’s idea of hipsterizing the film by nailing on a z. See? Don’t you already hate this film 40% less?

Anyway, some stuff happens, and there is a worker’s rebellion, in which the worker ants embrace Marxism and attempt to take control of the means of production. The chief soldier ant makes a rousing speech against such follies, and the masses are instantly converted to fascism. Antz is no treatise on individualism like the far-right Randfest that is The Incredibles, but I’d like to think it at least has a point, and if so, it’s probably something about the dangers of following ideologies rather than following yourself.

So come on everybody, start to follow yourself. Like this:

And watch Antz, because it’s not as bad as you think it is.