Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants
In a peaceful little clearing, the remains of a hastily abandoned picnic sparks a battle between two tribes of ants. A bold young ladybug finds himself caught in the middle. He befriends the leader of the black ants, Mandible, and helps him save the anthill from the assault of the terrible red ant warriors, led by the fearful Butor. A fantastic journey at ground level.
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Reviews
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
I'm glad I followed this recommendation from a IMDb list. This movie is really something out of the ordinary. For once, there is no dialogue. None at all. But it doesn't matter, because everything is either told visually or through animation and sounds. In that matter it is very consistent.It is beautifully shot, lid and scored. The fusion of real environments and animated animals go well together. I liked the sound design in particular, although it is very cartoonish.There are some creative bits that made me laugh out loud. Some of the humor is a little juvenile for my taste, though.The first act is flawless. Unfortunately the narrative gets messy in the last 30 minutes with scenes that go nowhere and a finale that lacks any emotion and is tonally inconsistent. For that sole reason I cannot give this film a higher rating.
Minuscule is about a baby ladybird who gets lost and befriends some ants. I went into this expecting it to be some happy little film with cute creatures, but it's so much more. There was so much peril in store for the ladybird and his friends, I began to wonder if there was even going to be a happy ending! I love the characters, even with the minor ones like the spider you still get a good feel of their personality.The wide mountain shots were absolutely stunning, and paired beautifully with the soundtrack. I love that although the creatures were animated, they still used real backgrounds. I also love the insect noises being like traffic, which I thought was very original. It also helps make a distinction between the red and black ants, as the black ants have a calming whistle whilst the red ants sound like angry dogs in my opinion.Parts of the film were a bit unrealistic. Obviously the big fight at the end was and I was okay with that because it was funny and it's an animated film so what else would you expect, but the beginning with the pregnant lady is a bit stupid. She starts going into labor (I assume this anyway, we only see some light gasps) and plays with her husbands leg to wake him, then they both gaze at the scenery before he knows what's up. If you have time to gaze at the scenery, you have time to pick up your picnic and not be litterbugs. I guess they had to set up the film somehow though. I also think it's crazy they had a whole box full of sugar, that's gonna be one hyper baby she gives birth to.Overall, Minuscule is a cute little film with some original touches and it's definitely worth watching.
Totally loved this movie, didn't know what to expect but was thrilled, charmed and amazed throughout. Cinematography is beautiful and the attention to detail astonishing, a lot of hard work has gone into this production and it really shows. Loved the personality's of each insect and although you need to suspend complete disbelief at what they achieve during the course of the movie it doesn't detract from a visual treat that is accomplished with zero dialogue from beginning to end, yes, no words from beginning to end and still a brilliant movie. Simply put, the best real film footage with CGI animation that I've ever seen - Kudos to the makers of this highly original film.
I am the big fan of the television short-video series 'Minuscule'. I watched all of them like a kid when it was aired in my country on Nickelodeon. Along with me everyone in my family loved it and each of us like different characters. So we all expected this movie from the very beginning when they announced the project. The wait is over, I saw it a couple of days ago and I totally loved it.It was the best choice of characters for the movie over plenty of tiny creatures are desperate to debut on the silver screen. They chose ants and ladybugs and their adventures filled with lots of humour. This was the story of a young ladybug who got separated from his parents. He meets a pack of black ants who are on a hunt for food, then they team up and help each other to face the challenge that coming in their way to home. Especially red ants who are on the trail to snatch their finds. This running and chasing between two small groups of creature becomes a crucial war between those races.If you are familiar with this TV series, then you will clearly understand the characters and their behaviour. Not much deviated, they kept as much the original except stretched to 90 minutes runtime. The story was largely inspired from 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy. Each section of the story telling reminds different episode of 'The Lord of the Rings'. First, it begins with 'The Fellows of the Sugar Cubes', then 'The Single Tower' and ends with 'The Return of the Queen'. All the way it was so much fun like you had for the TV series.No need to worry for the first time watcher, especially who are unfamiliar with these little characters. It was more like another version that you had seen in the Hollywood animations 'Antz', 'A Bug Life' 'Bee Movie' et cetera. The best part of all of it was this movie was dialogueless. No speaking, no names and no hard-coded subs. It only features amusing sounds created by the bugs and the wonderful background scores. It's a universal theme and presentation without any language barriers.A specially made movie for children with fine story. In company of them adults as well can enjoy it equally. One of the best animation movie, in fact the best children's movie of the year. Hope this title continues with many sequels in which each of the installments should brief different bug's or insect's tales. A must show to the kids and must see by the animation movie fans. Have this and have a great time.