Don't take your children to "The Ant Bully" and then expect them to watch quietly while you squish or poison the insects skittering across the kitchen floor or scaling the picnic basket.

	Credit, Post-Gazette Lucas Nickle, voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen, lands in the kingdom of the ants after he's miniaturized in "The Ant Bully." Click photo for larger image. 'The Ant Bully' Rating: PG for some mild rude humor and action. Starring: Voices of Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep. Director: John A. Davis. Family Film Guide Web site: www2.warnerbros.com/antbully/

The animated ants in this movie live in a highly advanced society, presided over by a queen with the voice of -- who else? -- Meryl Streep, and they come to vivid life. It's into this world that 10-year-old Lucas Nickle (Zach Tyler Eisen) lands after turning his anger on the ants unlucky enough to live in his yard.

Lucas, a bespectacled redhead, is a friendless newcomer and easy target of the neighborhood bully. The bigger boy sneers, "I'm big and you're small" and leaves Lucas with an atomic wedgie and a serious urge to pummel someone or something else. So he turns a squirt gun on an ant hill, whose residents have nicknamed him "Lucas the Destroyer."

When Lucas' parents go out of town and Lucas is left in the care of his kooky grandmother (Lily Tomlin) and distracted teenage sister, the ants strike back. They put a drop of a magic potion developed by Wizard Ant Zoc (Nicolas Cage) in Lucas' ear and shrink him to ant size. Then, they carry the itty-bitty boy to their colony, to answer for his crimes.

The queen wisely sentences Lucas to work in the colony, and Zoc's girlfriend, Nurse Ant Hova (Julia Roberts), offers to teach him their ways. He must find his place if he ever wants to return home.

Lucas learns about foraging for food, teamwork, a treat called "sweet rock," wicked wasps, just what an exterminator (voice of Paul Giamatti) does and what a human's world looks like from an ant's eye view.

Although not as funny as "Over the Hedge" (or as long as "Cars" or as scary as "Monster House"), "Ant Bully" is richly realized and detailed, clever -- a miniaturized Lucas turns a rose petal into a hang glider -- educational about family life above and below ground, and slyly instructional.

Lucas realizes the importance of friendship and looking out for others and, just because someone is bigger or stronger doesn't mean he should abuse that power. Even if handed the chance, a victim shouldn't turn into a bully.

The popcorn and Slushees may not be priceless, but that message is.