“Antz.” Directed by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson. Written by Todd Alcot, Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz. Running time: 83 minutes. Rated: PG (for mild language and some violence).

On paper, “Antz,” must have seemed a winner: Feature Woody Allen as Z, a worker ant who suffers from overwhelming insecurities and hates his insignificant lot in life.

Snag Sharon Stone as his sexy love interest, an undulating princess with a great thorax who uncrosses all six of her legs.

Add to this curious picnic the voices of Gene Hackman, Sylvester Stallone, Anne Bancroft and Jane Curtin, and the resulting film — as overseen by Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg — would be terrific, right?

Wrong. Once the initial delight of the film’s computer-generated images wears off, “Antz” instead exposes itself to be about as terrific as ants marching up your pants, an itchy, unsettling experience, to say the least.

To be sure, “Antz” looks smashing. In the three years that have passed since Disney’s “Toy Story,” significant leaps forward have been made in the execution and perfection of computer-generated effects — but at what cost to the films these effects are supposed to be enhancing? Ironically, at a negative cost. Indeed, as technology has pushed forward, good storytelling seems to have been lost.

Consider, if you will, the story behind “Antz.” As Z puts it: “Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Boy changes underlying social order.” As this critic puts it: Ant meets ant in a fairy tale with Marxist overtones.

In the film, Z is a worker ant trying to break free from the totalitarian strictures of an ant colony. A coward at heart, he only truly breaks free and becomes the individual he wants to be once he falls in love with Princess Bala (Stone) and, with her, saves the colony from the evil Gen. Mandible (Hackman), who wants the colony for himself.

But even though Mandible is willing to commit genocide to win the colony, he never elicits the same kind of fear and dread as, say, a Disney villain would. You don’t sense in him the same crazed desperation of the wicked queen in “Snow White” or the evil witch Maleficent in “Sleeping Beauty.” Mandible does seethe and grimace in great shows of anger, but they’re never convincing shows of anger. You never feel that he would do anything, absolutely anything to call this colony his own. Thus, the story drags where it should be ignited by his wrath, and the film suffers.

Other problems with the film stem mostly from the slow-moving plot, but “Antz” still isn’t a total loss. Some of the writing is clever, particularly in a scene which finds Z flat on his back on a therapist’s couch. “I’m the middle child in a family of 5 million,” Z says. “I’ve never been able to lift more than 10 times my weight.”

This is quintessential Allen type-casting at its best, but the lines here — and throughout — are too sophisticated for children to fully grasp, suggesting that all along the intended audience for this film has been adults.

Pity. If that’s the case, then the filmmakers missed an opportunity to give adult audiences something they truly would have appreciated: Casting Woody Allen as a nervous tick.

Grade: C+

Video of the Week

“Twilight.” Directed by Robert Benton. Written by Benton and Richard Russo. Running time: 96 minutes. Rated R (for language, brief nudity and violence).

Though we’re dealing with a cast whose combined age is hovering somewhere around 800, “Twilight” is not geezer noir for the geriatric set — not by far. Indeed, this engrossing thriller is smart, sexy and surprisingly spry in spite of the aches and pains its cast clearly seem to suffer.

In the film, Paul Newman is Harry Ross, a former police detective and private eye who, in the twilight of his years, finds himself caught between friends, a bizarre murder scene, and the difficult choices life presents to him as a result.

Harry’s friends are no ordinary people: They’re Jack and Catherine Ames (Gene Haclarian and Susan Sarandon), powerful former movie stars with whom Harry lives because Harry himself is broke, a recovering alcoholic who lost his career and his family to booze. World-weary and street-wise, Harry nevertheless falls headlong into deception, ultimately learning truths about the Ameses that have long since been buried — quite literally — in the past.

With James Garner and Stockard Channing in supporting roles, “Twilight” offers genuine surprises, a quick, knowing wit, and a cast that burns with talent. It is not to be missed.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear each Monday in the NEWS, and each Thursday on WLBZ’s “Alive at 5:30” he reviews what’s new and worth renting in video stores.