Barbatus

“	Don't make my mistake, kid. Don't follow orders your whole life. Think for yourself.	„
	~ Barbatus' dying words to Z

Barbatus is a soldier ant and a minor character in Antz.

He is voiced by Danny Glover, who also played Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon franchise, George Knox in Angels in the Outfield, Mike Harrigan in Predator 2, Miles in Barnyard and Winston in Alpha and Omega.

Film Role[]

When Z joins the Queen Ant's most loyal soldier ants to go a royal inspection in order to see Princess Bala, he meets Barbatus who is a tough soldier ant with a sense of camaderie like Z's other friend Weaver.

When Bala's fiance and the soldiers leader General Mandible orders the troops to go into battle against Termites, Z nervously tells Barbatus that he just came to hear the speech and the battle against termites was not what he had in mind but Barbatus is simply amused by Z and tells him that he'll watch out for Z. On the way to the Termites' lair Z asks Barbatus if the Termites are gonna put up a big fight to which Barbatus says that the Termites are five times the ants size and they shoot acid from their foreheads - much to Z's neurosis. Z also asks Barbatus how the soldiers plan on beating the Termites to which Barbatus simply replies "Kill their Queen!" and by "superior numbers" - meaning ants do not really have an effective strategy against termites other than sheer ant-wave suicidal attack. During the heated Termite Battle one of the Termites tries to eat Z but Barbatus stabbed it and saves Z's life. Barbatus then hops on another termite's back and fights it with his hammer, after he had given Z his spear. But as the battle becomes more intensified, Z is accidentally trapped under the ground topped by a body of a termite and debris, effectively putting him out of commission for the remainder of the battle.

Eventually the battle is over that resulted the destruction of termite nest, and Z comes out of his entrapment. The aftermath of the battle was terrible to behold: bodies of fallen ants and termites littered endlessly across the battlefield. It seems that no one else other than Z was left alive. Z wanders around the grisly battlefield to find Barbatus' head laying nearby, still alive but barely as the critically wounded soldier ant asks Z to help him up and when Z picks him up, he finds that Barbatus's body isn't there. In spite of Z telling Barbatus to hang on cause he will find his body (somehow), Barbatus knew better and demanded an honest answer, to which Z answers that Barbatus' wound was very bad. With his wound beyond saving, Barbatus tells Z to not take orders his whole life and to think for himself. Barbatus then succumbs to his wound and Z mourns the death of his dear friend.

Unbeknownst to Barbatus, Mandible had deliberately sent him and the other soldier ants most loyal to the Queen on the suicide mission in order to purge them so they would not interfere with his scheme to slay the Queen and the colony's worker ants so he could rebuild the colony made up of soldiers loyal to him.