Over the Hedge

When we first meet RJ the raccoon (Bruce Willis) he is trying to get the last bag of chips out of a vending machine. Even with all his tricks up his sleeve (and in his bag) he can't reach them. Desperate for food, he creeps into Vincent's (Nick Nolte) cave. The bear has a huge stash of food ready for when he wakes up after hibernation. Not knowing the meaning of the word moderation, RJ steals it all, including a wagon, a blue cooler and a tin of chip right out from under Vincent's paw.  Before RJ can escape, Vincent wakes up and catches him. RJ lets go of the wagon and it rolls right into the middle of the road and get hit by a truck.

Vincent wants to eat RJ, but RJ convinces him not to. He says that he will collect all the food for Vince, so that the bear can finish his sleep. Vince agrees, but only gives him one week to get all the food, including the chips, wagon and cooler.

RJ is at a loss at what to do, until he meets the hoarders. There's Vern (Garry Shandling) the turtle, Ozzie and Heather (William Shatner and Avril Lavigne) the possums, 5 porcupines, Stella (Wanda Sykes) the skunk, and Hammy (Steve Carell) the squirrel.

As they were hibernating, suburbia popped up around them. Vern travels to the other side of the hedge and is almost killed. He thinks they should stay away from the hedge and start collecting food for the next winter in what remains of the forest. RJ shows up and explains to them all about suburbia and shows them around. They are almost killed again by a psycho lady and Vern, once again states they should stay away.  RJ convinces them to let him stay and then takes Hammy over the hedge and comes back with a wagon full of cookies for everyone.

Little by little he starts getting the others to follow and pretty soon he has everything on the list that he owes Vince.  Unfortunately all their looting has caused the psycho lady to call an exterminator. Seeing this, Vern decides to give all the food back. RJ catches him and they fight over the food and it ends in a pile of dust. Realizing he is doomed, RJ is about to confess everything, but he sees that the psycho lady is having a BBQ so he gets everyone together for one final heists. Even Vern comes with them, because he feels bad about destroying all the food. Also he insulted everyone and they all sided with RJ over him, so he feels that RJ is the better leader.

They break into the house of 101 booby traps and get the food.  Vern and the others are ready to go when RJ spots a tin of chips he owes Vince. He makes a break for it and grabs the chips and the rest of the food. All the others are caught by the exterminator. Vince shows up and laughs about what happened. RJ realizes what he's done and pushes the wagon of food in front of the exterminator's truck. RJ jumps on to rescue them and Vince follows to try and eat RJ. They end up back at the psycho lady's house and the exterminator, Vince and the lady all end up caught in one of the many traps and all the animals escape and are one big happy family. YAY!

It was a very cute movie. Not great, and predicable but very amusing and well done. It was nothing ground breaking, and it's all been done before. There's a guy who's a lone wolf that is suddenly adopted into a family and he finds out how happy he is there and  what he went there to do in the first place doesn't seem that important anymore. Same old, same old. But everything was done really well. The animation was excellent, the voice acting was great and there was nothing really wrong with the movie. It just wasn't anything special, but still very entertaining.

Grade: 8/10