Bee Movie

Voices of: Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, Chris Rock, Kathy Bates, Sting, Oprah Winfrey, Barry Levinson, Larry King, Ray Liotta, Larry Miller, Megan Mullally, Rip Torn, Michael Richards, Top Papa
Directed by: Simon J. Smith, Steve Hickner,
Rating: PG
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
2007

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A bee (Jerry Seinfeld) decides to sue the human race for stealing honey from bees.

Review:

Tim: Bee Movie is a bit of an oddity of a film. It's a Dreamworks animated film, and their films have traditionally been pretty hit-or-miss. It's more noteworthy for being the first movie written by Jerry Seinfeld, who also voices the main character. This was actually surprising to me. I'm not sure why he hasn't done more films (other than not needing the money, I suppose). It was kind of exciting to see what he'd do, even if this was a kid's movie. In that context, the film is quite disappointing. This might be a decent movie, but it's far too generic and forgettable. With the talent assembled here, the film should have been so much better.

In a film written by Seinfeld, I wouldn't have expected that the story was the weakest part. It has its moments, but it veers off into so many strange directions that it's hard to identify what exactly the writers were trying to achieve. The film starts out decently enough- we get an in depth look at life in a bee hive. The main source of humor in the early scenes is that each bee gets one job for their entire life. Our hero, Barry isn't sure he wants to commit to doing the same thing every day. At this stage, the film works. We have our protagonist going up against the social convictions of the day, refusing to be categorized and put into a box. It's a tried-and-true approach, but it works. From here, the story starts taking bizarre turns, each one decreasing the overall quality of the film. While outside of the hive, Barry meets a human woman and talks to her (even though talking to humans is forbidden). They become friends, much to the jealousy of the woman's boyfriend. Weird, right? And then, it takes an even further spin when Barry learns that humans harvest honey from bees. He decides to sue the human race. Really weird at this point. Eventually, all plant and floral life screeches to a halt. Seriously, this is the story for an animated film about bees. It's a bit insane and even more damaging, it's not all that interesting. Now, I do give the writers credit for not turning in yet another carbon copy of myriad other animated films we've seen. They get some points for originality. But originality needs to be good. This movie is certainly different, but it's not effective in the least.

I kind of enjoyed seeing the relationships Barry had with the different bees. It felt like there was more to explore there. Unfortunately, the bulk of the movie is the friendship between Barry and Vanessa, the human woman. Why the movie spent so much time on this is a little odd. Were we supposed to really care about these two? It's kind of awkward and not all that interesting. It was really a strange thing to focus so much time on.

Seinfeld is pretty good as Barry. His voice is unique and it works. Renee Zellweger did a good job as Vanessa. I wouldn't say she blew me away with her performance, but it works. It was fun to hear Matthew Broderick as Barry's best friend. Patrick Warburton got plenty of opportunity to shine and add levity ot the film. It was good hearing John Goodman, Chris Rock, and many of the others of the cast. Bee Movie has a lot of problems, but the voice cast isn't one of them.

I thought the animation was decent. There wasn't anything truly remarkable about the film, but it was pleasant to watch. Not every animated film is going to stun us these days, so this isn't really a detriment.

I do give Bee Movie credit for going in so many unexpected directions.This film at least had the courage to try something different and it gets points for that. Unfortunately, the direction didn't exactly pan out. This is clearly a second tier effort. It's certainly not a bad movie, but has so many flaws that it has no chance ever being better than decent. As I said before, with the talent assembled, that's simply not good enough.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



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