Linda Thomas: at the movies

10-year-old Lucas Nickle is the new kid in the neighborhood. The bigger kids push him around and bully him. Lucas takes out his frustration on the anthill in his yard. The bullies are bigger than him and he is bigger than the ants. The wizard ant, Zoc (Nicolas Cage), has just discovered a magic potion to make the destroyers (humans) as small as the ants. Lucas is reduced in size and he must learn to live like an ant. Hova (Julia Roberts) is his mentor in the ways of ants. She teaches him that ants always work together, look out for one another and think of others before themselves. These are concepts that Lucas needs to learn very badly. He has inadvertently been tricked into hiring an exterminator, Paul Giamatti, to get rid of the ants. The problem is that now he is one of them. Will he be able to save the ants before they are exterminated? Will he learn to stand up for himself with the bullies? Lucas spends some very amusing times with the ants. There is some mild potty humor and action violence but overall the values learned outweigh the rude humor. I would recommend this movie to children 5 and older. Why does Lucas feel better when he takes his anger out on the ants? How does he learn to be empathetic?