film: Bee Movie

Lords, Ladies and gentlemen, on the menu today, we’re taking a look at the animated picture that brought comedian Jerry Seinfeld back to our screens. Please give a very warm welcome to Bee Movie.

So what’s the plot? Jerry Seinfeld plays 
Barry B. Benson, a recent graduate from bee college. Depressed by the lack of choice he faces working as a bee, he longs for adventure. During a trip outside the hive, he breaks one of the cardinal rules of bee-dom and speaks to Renee Zellweger’s human florist Vanessa. Barry soon finds out that mankind is stealing honey from the bees and he is determined to do something about it.

On the face of it, bees are extremely interesting creatures. Aside from the human language, the honeybee waggle dance is the most sophisticated form of communication in nature. Bees have a sense of time, can recognize human faces and are responsible for every third mouthful of food we eat.

Sadly any kind of interest I may have once had in Apis mellifera has been destroyed by this earth-shatteringly disappointing film. Oh my friends, where to begin? For starters, the animation looks lackluster compared to the gorgeous palletes employed by recent animation such as Ratatouille. Although the hives are a riot of colour, they lack the depth and detail that you now come to expect from a top-notch studio such as Dreamworks.

And then there’s the characters. Seinfeld’s Barry is just plain annoying. While he produces the odd giggle-worthy gag worthy, it feels like he’s going through the motions. Seinfeld also seems incapable of changing vocal tone: a sentimental scene is played in pretty much the same timbre as a funny one. Chris Rock’s mosquito is cruelly robbed of screentime, while Renee Zelwegger’s florist is so poorly written that it’s a credit to her that she doesn’t corpse when performing her lines. The only saving grace is John Goodman’s deliciously oily lawyer who, not only steals the show but handcuffs it, shoves a table tennis ball in its mouth and robs it blind.

But my biggest gripe, dear readers, is the story. Can someone please tell me what the hell this movie is about? On the one hand it seems to be about rebelling, on the other it seems to extol the virtues of cross species love. Then there’s an absurd court case involving the nature of slavery, which brings up the themes of work ethic and environment. The message is all over the place – but that doesn’t stop the writers giving us a slew of cutesy sermons. Please give me a break. I mean – really. Really. They might as well have done a speech about the importance of being a brown bag.

This film is so sickly, that it’s the kind of movie that might have it’s creator put it’s wife and children on the credits as “wife support system” and “kid humor consultants”. Whoops…it has done.
Ladies and gentlemen, Bee Movie is out to rent now and I’m sorry to say that this film is no more than 2 stars.

For the best of the rest:

The NY Times:
Bees rarely fly in a straight line. They hover and zigzag, with a purpose known only to the collective brain of the hive. The most genuinely apian aspect of “Bee Movie,” DreamWorks’ new animated movie about, well, bees, is that it spends a lot of its short running time buzzing happily around, sniffing out fresh jokes wherever they may bloom. There is a plot — the usual big, elaborate story with the usual important messages about saving the planet, living together in interspecies harmony and believing in yourself — but it’s a little beside the point. The real fun is the insect shtick.

Film Critic:
The majority of Dreamworks’ animated films are second rate to those of Pixar. For every Antz, there’s a much better A Bug’s Life. In a year dominated by the brilliance of Pixar’s Ratatouille, Dreamworks’ Bee Movie plays out more like a B-movie (pun intended) than an A-list competitor.


Rolling Stone:
You can’t have Jerry Seinfeld co-write, co-produce and co-star in a movie without getting a major payoff in laughs. But those eagerly waiting for the sight of Jerry on the big screen will still have to wait (or watch his excellent 2002 documentary Comedian). Bee Movie is animated, and it’s damn hard to make a bee look like Jerry — yellow and black were never his colors. Although Barry B. Benson, the bee voiced by our star, has a sure antenna for comedy, he lacks the expressive deadpan that made Seinfeld a TV landmark.