The Worm King

The Worm King is the 2016 American animated comedy action-adventure film directed, written and produced by Bruce W. Smith, Willard Carroll and Thomas L. Wilhite and co-produced by Hyperion Animation, and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on October 7, 2016. It tells the story set in a world inhabited by anthromorphic pigeons, a clumsy and goofy worm dreaming to win first place at the Bug Science Fair.

Plot
The Kingdom of Applewood's environment is devastated by a mysterious storm. In the hole ful of worms, a pigeon, King Walbert, then blackmails his brother Nercury and the rest of the world to pay the town not to unleash the various doomsday devices invented by its Bug Scientists. They in turn are assisted by worms and other bugs, while the kingdom's annual Evil Science Fair showcases the scientists' latest weapons. One worm, Ren, however, who is separated from his mother and brothers during the attack, now serves the somewhat tedious-minded Doctor Glickenstein, is a talented inventor who aspires to be an Evil Scientist himself. Among his inventions are his friends "Mercury," a re-animated, sometimes antagonistic, and immortal pigeon with a death wish and "Freddie", a unintelligent worm transplanted into a life support jar.

When the malfunctioning invention explodes and decimates Glickenstein, Ren sees his chance. With Mercury and Joe's help, he assembles a huge, monstrous being from human remains. When he brings her to life, however, he discovers that the "Evil Bone" he gave her was not activated, making her kind, friendly and feminine. Mopi tries to convince her that she is evil, inadvertently naming her "Eva."

Ren attempts to brainwash Eva into becoming a worm by bringing her to a brainwashing salon where people are hooked into a machine and shown animal things for a few hours. Nercury also gets the same thing in order to watch TV, but he has taken the remote for Eva's room and every time he tries to change the channel the TV in Eva's room changes. She therefore watches the program Annie for several hours, so when Eva gets out she can speak English and wants to be an actress. Ren then takes her to the magical forests and then back to the castle to be destroyed in the car. That night, Freddie is captured by a young mischevious boy with mad scientist ambitions, so Mopi, Eva, Joe and Nercury come to the rescue before his brother becomes a science project, after the fight, he ends up his head stuck in an umbrella by Joe. As the pigeons chase after them, Ren, the pigeon, the hamsters, the dog and the cute kitty steal the car to drive on the way back to the woods, Mopi's nemesis Dr. Schadenfreude and Jackie try to steal Eva by using a shrink ray to shrink them all, but are instead struck by the ray themselves. Ren decides to exhibit Eva at the science fair anyway, telling her that the fair is an "Annie" audition.

Dr. Schadenfreude learns of Eva's existence and attempts to steal her. When that fails, he exposes Nercury to King Walbert, who promptly sends Ren to an "Bug Recycling Plant." Schadenfreude activates Eva's Evil Bone and unleashes her on the Science Fair, where she destroys all the Evil Inventions. Joe and Mercury help Mopi escape from the Bug Recycling Plant and they learn that Walbert had deliberately killed Malaria's crops with a weather ray that made storm clouds so he could implement his "Evil Inventions" plan, thereby keeping himself in power. Rushing into the arena, Mopi reasons with Eva to deactivate her Evil Bone and allowing her to regain her sweet personality, while Bruce and Nercury deactivate the weather ray, which falls and crushes Walbert to death, which leads his brother says his last goodbye.

Dr. Schadenfreude attempts to take power, but the citizens revolt upon learning of Walbert's deception. Jackie sees that her voice is cracking, so she tries to get another pill but finds she's all out. As Jackie's voice becomes more and more cracked, she transforms into a female worm. The monarchy has been dissolved and Malaria becomes a republic, with Mopi as president. Schadenfreude is relegated to pickle salesman, while the annual Science Fair becomes an annual musical theater showcase. Mopi and Eva are planning on making a bug, or adopting one.

Cast

 * Ewan McGregor as Ren, a goofy and clumsy worm. When he learns of his fate of being eaten by pigeons, he flees into exile.
 * Anne Hathaway as Eva, Ren's childhood friend and later girflfriend.
 * John Hurt as Mercury, an antagonistic, stubborn and cowardly pigeon who is the Walbert's younger brother. During the mission of eating worms, he accidentally adopts Ren as his foster son. In the end, he redeems himself after feels betrayed by Walbert for fails to kill the worms.
 * Hugh Jackman as Joe, an unintelligent rat.
 * Jim Broadbent as Dr. Glickenstein
 * Hugh Laurie as D. Cipher
 * Steve Buscemi as Um, one of the hamsters.
 * Kate McKinnon as Dos, one of the hamsters.
 * David Ogden Stiers as Tres, one of the hamsters.
 * Tim Curry as King Walbert, Mercury's older brother and current arch-nemesis, who takes the throne. He is the main antagonist of the film. In the end, he ends up killed from being crushed by the weather ray.
 * Billy Crystal and Jim Cummings as Randall and Grundelingk
 * Wallace Shawn as Freddie, Valient's brother.
 * Grey DeLisle as Bertha Bettle
 * Whoopi Goldberg as Shelley Bettle
 * Jada Pinkett Smith as Margaret Bettle
 * Tom Kenny as the Bad Boy
 * Jack Johnson as the Bug Collector
 * Angela Lansbury as Beakley
 * Frank Welker as the dogs, the Hawk, Rockstar Cat, and additional animal sounds

Home media
The Worm King was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on December 13, 2016. The bonus features consists of bloopers, two deleted scenes and the audio commentaries.