Amidst the cop dramas with violent themes coated with tons of vulgar language and gore emerges the animated family film of the fall season, “Bee Movie”.
Jerry Seinfeld is finally back to the screen in this animated film which he has invested a lot of time and money.
Barry Bee Benson (Jerry Seinfeld) has just finished Bee College. Eager to jump into the bee world, Barry realizes he doesn’t want to live a life of servitude making honey until the day he dies. Buzzing out on New York City and nearly killed multiple times, he is saved by a creature-loving human named Vanessa (Renee Zellweger).
Over coffee and sugar, Barry and Vanessa become friends. Trying to understand the world outside the hive Barry is shocked to find out that honey is being sold, consumed and monopolized by humans. Determined to make a difference in the bee community, he sets out to stop the honey conglomerates.
“Bee Movie” is for children. It is a perfect afternoon excursion for ten-year-olds and younger. The vibrant colors, imaginative design and seeing the movie through the eyes of a bee is enthralling.
The hilarity of the movie takes on more of a cartoon quality with exaggerated action sequences, montages and slapstick humor. There are some witty Jerry Seinfeld moments where his comedic ability shines through for adults, but ultimately the film relies on physical comedy to keep the children entertained.
The immersion of bees with human qualities such as cars, houses, pools and speech are different aspects of what we’ve seen in past-animated films, where the creature was a product of its environment. This reversal of trends is pleasant, but not as intriguing.
As an adult, the part of this film that bothered me the most was at the beginning. During the first ten minutes of this feature we are taught what bees do, how they act and how they defy the laws of aerodynamics. Immediately after this lesson, all rules were dumped out the window. The first ten minutes was filler to teach kids about bees.
So much happens in the hour-and-a-half of this film and if I wasn’t an adult would be lost. The story takes on such epic proportions that you would have to be a child to endure the lifeless story.
There are some amazing talented actors in the film and the people at DreamWorks should be happy about how beautiful the film looks, but the creativity in the writing could have made a bigger impact. Seinfeld should stick to writing adult humor.
“Bee Movie” isn’t bad, but it’s not good either. If you don’t have children who are interested in animated features – wait till you can rent it.