In "Over the Hedge," woodland creatures sneak into suburbia like a "Mission: Impossible" team. Why? Their habitat is rapidly losing ground to development. To load up for the winter, they've got no choice but to slip through the big hedge that rings the human world and make for the trash cans.

Welcome to an amusing war between cute critters and crass consumers. On the good side, we have a scheming raccoon named RJ (voiced by Bruce Willis), a slow-talking turtle called Verne (Garry Shandling) and Hammy (Steve Carell), the most insanely hyperactive squirrel to flit across a computer-animated screen. And in the villains' corner -- that would be the human race -- we have Gladys (Allison Janney), a homemaker with the soul of Cruella De Vil who dispatches an exterminator to take care of the furry invaders. Her go-to guy? The "Verminator" (Thomas Haden Church), a methodical killer with a comb-over and an arsenal of death-dealing equipment more appropriate for full-scale military invasion than household pest control.

"Hedge" is built for laughter rather than artistry; jokes are packed into every pixel. But despite the movie's entertaining qualities, there is something a little unsettling. "Hedge" hums along with such well-greased precision, you can almost hear the industrial cogs and wheels whirring in all their viscous complexity. There's such a knowing swagger about the film's comedy, there seems to be no innocence in the mix at all.

The movie's certainly funny, and on the money, satirizing humans as boors, who practically oink into their cellphones as they drive to the supermarket for more and more soda and Pringles -- or "Spuddies," as they're called here. After all, if the fat cap fits, we all deserve to wear it. But when "Hedge" blithely pokes fun at consumerism, it feels something like hypocrisy.

-- Desson Thomson

Contains some rude humor.