We continue our Movie Madness series with the Dreamworks Animation's 'Over The Hedge'

May 21, 2006 - My mind was wandering during the movie this afternoon. That's not necessarily a good thing. When a movie is clicking on all cylinders, I find that I can get lost in the action. For a moment I'll forget I'm watching a movie.

That's not always easy to do when you hear the sounds of parents speaking goo-goo to their kids, people munching on popcorn, squeaking of theatre seats, and children running up and down the aisle.

But, hey, I'm in a movie theatre showing 'Over the Hedge' - it's a 'kids' movie - or so say the millions of parents taking their youngsters to see this animated feature, which is a better alternative than 'The DaVinci Code' for the under-10 set.

It's bizarre to me that many parents seem to feel like a movie theatre is just an extension of their own living rooms, where little Zackary and Alexis can talk, run around, ask for snacks, talk to the characters on the screen and otherwise just hang out. And parents just answer right back. In full voice.

Sure, small children sometimes talk in a movie theatre, but could parents please ask them to use their 'indoor voices' or whatever thing we're teaching them these days.

But I digress. Remember, my mind was wandering….

I found myself wondering why all CG animated characters have the same eyes. Have you noticed that? Be they a fish, or bug, or ogre, or cat, all characters in CG animated movies have those round, shiny eyes with human-like irises and pupils.

Back in the 20s and 30s, animated characters had different eyes. They were black circles with a little wedge cut out of them.

Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Betty Boop, Bosko, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit- they all had those strange black circle eyes.

We look back at them and think, how could all the artists in Hollywood make those black circle eyes with the little wedge cut out of them? But they did. [left]

Just like they all had a thumb and only three fingers on each hand. Weird.

Today, with computer-generated animation, it seems to be about having those same eyes.

Woody a toy cowboy in 'Toy Story,' Sully the big blue monster in 'Monsters, Inc.,' Donkey in 'Shrek,' and even in today's previews, all the mice in the upcoming CG animated movie from Dreamworks 'Flushed Away' have those same round human-like eyes. Today, in animation, that is apparently how eyes are 'done.' It's weird.

On with the review of 'Over the Hedge' -- where the animals have those weird eyes.