Animated Consumerism

I have to admit that I liked the computer animated film Over The Edge. While waiting for the opening of the PC Show 2006 here at Suntec City, I decided to take some time out to watch a movie (luckily, this movie was an hour away before showing so I quickly bought a ticket). I learned this movie's praises from a featured film critic in a local morning TV show - her liking the movie's animal characters and how the story's plot projects how modern people are bent into blatant consumerism.

At first, the kids (yeah, there were many kids around my area; they go wildly gaga at first sight of the "cute" animal characters - like cherished stuff toys coming to life), went crazy and laughed at the antics of the animals. But later on, the story's numerous jokes has gone to (somewhat) mature humor that the only sounds I hear in the dark area were my laughter, some old guy's snicker, and another dad or mom's guffaw.

Without being too much preachy about the subject, the film tries to convey how us modernized human beings tend to enslave our everyday lives with tons of gadgets and food binges that we seldom stop and think about what really is important and necessary to survive. In short the very basic needs that will provide us with a good quality of life (without the added garneshings or creams of life that we could do without like junk foods and branded but too expensive stuffs). In one scene of the film, RJ the racoon was pinpointing at a huffing human being over the treadmill, telling at the same time that us creatures tend to do this after gorging on tons of food (this really had me smiling).

Near the end of the film, I also liked the idea of protraying Hammie the squirrel in super hyper speed mode by having everyone and everything move in slow motion while he simply does his thing normally (look at it this way: for super fast characters, everything moves in slow motion, thus there is enough time for them to do crazy stunts like dodging bullets).

The movie may not be at par with the quality and story of The Incredibles, but I should say this one goes to my list of movies I really enjoyed (even if the characters were digitally made).

I give this 4 stars out of 5.