The Ant Bully

The Ant Bully is a 2006 CGI animated movie based on a children's book by John Nickle.

The film is about a boy named Lucas Nickle who, after being picked on by some bullies, takes out his anger on an anthill. The ants who live there don't take too kindly to this, and magically shrink him down to ant size so that they can punish him. Initially they want to kill him, but the Queen Ant steps in and insists that he live among them for a while. He begins to learn how to live as an ant, and develops friendships with some of them.

Not just another "ant movie", the film is surprisingly mature in many aspects.

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Tropes used in The Ant Bully include:

• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Early in the movie, Lucas is the monster "Peanut the Destroyer".
• Adaptation Expansion: The film is based on a book that's about 30 pages long.
• Bare Your Midriff: Tiffany does this, as do the two girls working at the pizza place.
  • Not to mention Lucas himself.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Fugax and Kreela
• Blind Without'Em: Averted; the entire time he is shrunken to ant size, Lucas does not wear his glasses yet he can see perfectly fine, which makes you wonder why he would need his glasses when he is at normal size.
• Break the Cutie: You have to feel sorry for Lucas. He's bullied, he has no friends, his parents don't know how to relate to him, his sister shows absolutely no interest in him and he has no other enjoyment but to torture animals all days. And that's before he gets shrunk and kidnapped in the middle of the night by giant ants that push him down various incredibly (comparatively) great heights and then threaten to eat him alive when he is completely helpless. All while he's completely naked. No wonder his eyes start leaking.
• By Wall That Is Holey: How Fugax survives an attack with a phone receiver.
• Cassandra Truth: Only the grandmother realises that Lucas has been shrunk by what she believes to be aliens. Tiffany thinks she's just crazy.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Alca root. Zoc uses it on the frog to save both Lucas and himself.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Mommo and the nameless "Smiley" water beetle.
• Crazy Prepared: Just how much resistance did the exterminator expect while packing all those weapons?
• Do Not Explain the Joke: The "Cross your heart" bit.
• Enemy Mine: Ants and wasps vs. exterminator
• Foreign Queasine: Lucas loves honeydew until he finds out what it is--excreta from the caterpillars the colony uses as livestock.
• Going Native
• Groin Attack: "That looks vulnerable..."
• Held Gaze: Zoc and Hova have a particularly lingering one after Zoc has redeemed himself in Hova's eyes by putting his life on the line for Lucas.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: So Aang is drowning ants now?
  • Colonel Gordon from Godzilla: Final Wars voices one of the ants.
  • The head nurse is Dee Dee Sykes.
• Hartman Hips: Lucas's mom has them to a ludicrous extreme.
• Incredible Shrinking Boy
• Insect Gender Bender: The queen is female and huge, but the other ants are bigendered.
• Magic Pants: Averted: Lucas's clothes don't shrink with him, so he's forced to make new clothes out of shed exoskeletons.
  • The same occurs at the end when Lucas is returned to human size and his ant clothes do not grow with him. He quickly finds himself standing completely naked in the front garden.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Lucas is known to the ants as 'Peanut The Destroyer' for his actions when he was full-sized. The Peanut part being a nickname from his mother.
• Mouse World: Inside the Ant Hill.
• Naked People Trapped Outside: When Lucas grows back to his normal size, he finds himself butt-naked in the front garden.
• Not So Different: Lucas and Zoc.
• Oh Crap: Actually uttered by a fly after getting swallowed again by a frog.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: Lucas is not afraid of the bully anymore after his experiences with the ants.
• Product Placement: Jelly Belly™ jelly beans are the ants' favorite food.
• Puppy Dog Eyes: Hova does this when she demonstrates what ants do instead of crying when they're sad.
• Shot in the Ass: A very subtle example when Lucas gets pushed into the anthill. The ants repairing the colony take it in turns to guide the falling Lucas towards the Queen by shooting a web like goo on him, the first stream of which hits Lucas straight in the butt.
• Take That: The head of the bug that gets pulled out of the frog's digestive juices looks awfully familiar...
• A Wizard Did It: Among the ants are those considered 'wizards', although they actually seem to be more like potioneers. Nonetheless, a potion that can shrink a boy to the size of an ant is clearly magic.