Over the Hedge

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Over the Hedge ★★★ 2006 (PG)

Hilarious, somewhat shallow comedy has a group of woodland creatures awakening from their winter hibernation, surprised to see a subdivision has sprouted up just beyond a hedge. Opportunistic raccoon RJ (Willis) tells his pals, including cautious turtle Verne (Shandling), that humans equal the good life and that they should venture into this strange new world. Of course, the humans, in the form of harpie Gladys (Janney) and “Verminator” Dwayne (Church) view these new neighbors as pests. Plenty of laughs and excellent voice performances, especially from Carell and Shatner, but trades some of the satire of Michael Fry and T. Lewis's source comic strip for fuzzy sentimentality. 84m/C DVD . USD: Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick; W: Karey Kirkpatrick, Len Blum, Lorne Cameron, David Hoselton; M: Rupert Gregson-Williams; V: Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steven Carell, William Shatner, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Wanda Sykes, Nick Nolte, Thomas Haden Church, Allison Janney, Avril Lavigne, Omid Djalili, Sami Kirkpatrick, Shane Baumel, Madison Davenport.