If there was a word that could be used to describe
Bee Movie, that word would be pleasant. Charming would probably work too, because that's exactly what this movie is. It generates few really big laughs, but I smiled a lot, and I admired the imagination that went into it. Kids will undoubtedly love it, and adults won't be bored. Those adults who are looking for the same kind of humor used in Jerry Seinfeld's sitcom will be disappointed. He's playing to a younger crowd here. But the movie packs in plenty of charm, energy, and likable characters to overcome this.
Barry B. Benson (voice by Jerry Seinfeld) is a young bee who is excited to start his life, only to discover he'll be spending the rest of his natural life working for the hive. His best friend, Adam (Matthew Broderick), is thrilled at the opportunities that lie before both of them becoming worker bees, but Barry just can't share his enthusiasm, and wants to see what else awaits him besides working himself to death. Instead of choosing a career that will control the rest of his life, Barry decides to leave the hive and explore the city outside. Amongst the many strange things and hostile humans that he encounters, he has a chance meeting with one human who seems different from the rest. She is Vanessa (Renee Zellweger), a florist who saves Barry from being crushed by a much smaller-minded human's (Patrick Warburton) boot. According to this movie, bees have always had the ability to speak, but are not allowed to reveal this to humans. Vanessa's heroic act of kindness leaves such an impression on Barry that he decides to break this rule, and strike up a conversation with her. The woman is shocked at first, but the two gradually build a genuine friendship, and before long they are explaining the ways of their individual worlds to each other. One of the things Barry discovers about the human world is that they have been stealing honey from the hives for years. Barry is disgusted by this, and decides he needs to take action. With Vanessa's help, Barry sets up an unprecedented lawsuit against the "Big Honey" corporations. What the two don't realize is the consequences on the environment and the world around them that will result due to their actions.
Bee Movie is light, airy entertainment that whizzes by in a blink of an eye, and doesn't leave a big impression on the viewer. What it does have while you're watching it is a massive amount of charm and a sense of fun. For most of its running time, directors Steve Hickner (
The Prince of Egypt) and Simon J. Smith give this movie a quick pace moves fast enough to keep the breezy story running, but never comes across as being manic or obnoxious. The movie takes somewhat of a more serious turn during the third act when an environmental message is thrown in, but even then, the movie never becomes heavy-handed or preachy, and still manages to keep up its sense of fun while still getting its message across. The screenplay was written by Jerry Seinfeld himself, along with some other writers who used to work on his show. As mentioned earlier, the humor is much softer and a bit more youth-oriented than fans of the show might be expecting. That's not to say there's no smart satire targeted at adults to be found. What came as a great relief to me is despite the film's PG-rating, the writers did not use this as an opportunity to put in a lot of crude, inappropriate humor. There's not a fart joke in sight (though a guy does get stung in the butt at one point), and nothing that parents should find offensive. In fact, kids will probably learn quite a lot about bees by watching this. As a long-time bee hater, I learned a few things myself about the little guys.
What really surprised me is that for all of its fast pacing and equally fast-flying jokes and bee-related puns, the movie does take enough time to slow down and allow the characters to develop quite nicely. The friendship that evolves between Barry and Vanessa is genuinely sweet, and is helped even more by the strong voice acting by Seinfeld and Zellweger in the lead roles. They play off of each other well, and have a chemistry that really made me smile during their scenes together, especially the more quiet moments that the characters share together, talking about the worlds they come from. The movie is wonderful to look at, as well. The world of the bees is very bright and rounded, and it looks like a lot of imagination went into the making of it. It doesn't try to make it look like a smaller bee-inspired version of our world, although they do have little cars and such, but rather makes it look like a world that could never exist in our own. This is the method I always prefer in animated films, as I always find it boring when animated films take the extraordinary, and then try to make them and their world exactly like ours. This is a movie that understands that animation should show us things that could never exist in our world. When Barry enters the human world, it is accompanied by a stunning and lengthy sequence of him flying and exploring New York City, which gives us a "bee's eye view" of the world. The sense of scope and size is awesome, and almost makes me wish Dreamworks had released an IMAX version of the film just for this sequence alone.
A lot of effort has obviously gone into
Bee Movie, and I found a lot to like. If there's any one problem that stands out it is that the movie itself never quite leaves as big of an impression as it should. The movie is continuously pleasant and charming, but never quite rises above that. Maybe it says something about the movie that I wanted more. I liked it enough as it was, but wanted the movie to impress me more. Aside from the previously mentioned sequence where Barry explores the city for the first time, no scenes have any "wow" factor. The movie is filled with celebrity cameos, which for the most part don't come across as being out of place or a desperate case of stunt casting. Rock musician Sting and actor Ray Liota come across as great sports in their brief self-mocking cameos as themselves. A few other cameos, such as Larry King, come across as being a bit too cute. And then there is one that left me scratching my head a little. Talk show queen, Oprah Winfrey, provides the voice of the Judge presiding over Barry's case against the honey corporations. My question is why did the movie need her? She only has about three minutes worth of dialogue total, it doesn't exploit her, and it just seems to be an attempt to add another celebrity name to the credits. The movie wouldn't have been any worse or better without her, and if you're not going to use a celebrity's talents, why bother using them? If they wanted to use her, why not have her play herself, and have Barry go on her show or something?
Bee Movie is nowhere near strong enough to knock down the current animation champ of 2007,
Ratatouille, but it is entertaining enough that I am recommending it. Kids will have a lot of fun, and adults will enjoy it on a different level, though not as much. The movie has charm and energy to spare, it just needed a little more smart humor to lift it up to being something truly special. As it is, I'm certainly not complaining. This is a movie parents can feel good about taking their kids to, and that in itself is a rarity.
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If there was a word that could be used to describe Bee Movie, that word would be pleasant. Charming would probably work too, because that's exactly what this movie is. It generates few really big laughs, but I smiled a lot, and I admired the imagination that went into it. Kids will undoubtedly love it, and adults won't be bored. Those adults who are looking for the same kind of humor used in Jerry Seinfeld's sitcom will be disappointed. He's playing to a younger crowd here. But the movie packs in plenty of charm, energy, and likable characters to overcome this.
Barry B. Benson (voice by Jerry Seinfeld) is a young bee who is excited to start his life, only to discover he'll be spending the rest of his natural life working for the hive. His best friend, Adam (Matthew Broderick), is thrilled at the opportunities that lie before both of them becoming worker bees, but Barry just can't share his enthusiasm, and wants to see what else awaits him besides working himself to death. Instead of choosing a career that will control the rest of his life, Barry decides to leave the hive and explore the city outside. Amongst the many strange things and hostile humans that he encounters, he has a chance meeting with one human who seems different from the rest. She is Vanessa (Renee Zellweger), a florist who saves Barry from being crushed by a much smaller-minded human's (Patrick Warburton) boot. According to this movie, bees have always had the ability to speak, but are not allowed to reveal this to humans. Vanessa's heroic act of kindness leaves such an impression on Barry that he decides to break this rule, and strike up a conversation with her. The woman is shocked at first, but the two gradually build a genuine friendship, and before long they are explaining the ways of their individual worlds to each other. One of the things Barry discovers about the human world is that they have been stealing honey from the hives for years. Barry is disgusted by this, and decides he needs to take action. With Vanessa's help, Barry sets up an unprecedented lawsuit against the "Big Honey" corporations. What the two don't realize is the consequences on the environment and the world around them that will result due to their actions.
Bee Movie is light, airy entertainment that whizzes by in a blink of an eye, and doesn't leave a big impression on the viewer. What it does have while you're watching it is a massive amount of charm and a sense of fun. For most of its running time, directors Steve Hickner (The Prince of Egypt) and Simon J. Smith give this movie a quick pace moves fast enough to keep the breezy story running, but never comes across as being manic or obnoxious. The movie takes somewhat of a more serious turn during the third act when an environmental message is thrown in, but even then, the movie never becomes heavy-handed or preachy, and still manages to keep up its sense of fun while still getting its message across. The screenplay was written by Jerry Seinfeld himself, along with some other writers who used to work on his show. As mentioned earlier, the humor is much softer and a bit more youth-oriented than fans of the show might be expecting. That's not to say there's no smart satire targeted at adults to be found. What came as a great relief to me is despite the film's PG-rating, the writers did not use this as an opportunity to put in a lot of crude, inappropriate humor. There's not a fart joke in sight (though a guy does get stung in the butt at one point), and nothing that parents should find offensive. In fact, kids will probably learn quite a lot about bees by watching this. As a long-time bee hater, I learned a few things myself about the little guys.
What really surprised me is that for all of its fast pacing and equally fast-flying jokes and bee-related puns, the movie does take enough time to slow down and allow the characters to develop quite nicely. The friendship that evolves between Barry and Vanessa is genuinely sweet, and is helped even more by the strong voice acting by Seinfeld and Zellweger in the lead roles. They play off of each other well, and have a chemistry that really made me smile during their scenes together, especially the more quiet moments that the characters share together, talking about the worlds they come from. The movie is wonderful to look at, as well. The world of the bees is very bright and rounded, and it looks like a lot of imagination went into the making of it. It doesn't try to make it look like a smaller bee-inspired version of our world, although they do have little cars and such, but rather makes it look like a world that could never exist in our own. This is the method I always prefer in animated films, as I always find it boring when animated films take the extraordinary, and then try to make them and their world exactly like ours. This is a movie that understands that animation should show us things that could never exist in our world. When Barry enters the human world, it is accompanied by a stunning and lengthy sequence of him flying and exploring New York City, which gives us a "bee's eye view" of the world. The sense of scope and size is awesome, and almost makes me wish Dreamworks had released an IMAX version of the film just for this sequence alone.
A lot of effort has obviously gone into Bee Movie, and I found a lot to like. If there's any one problem that stands out it is that the movie itself never quite leaves as big of an impression as it should. The movie is continuously pleasant and charming, but never quite rises above that. Maybe it says something about the movie that I wanted more. I liked it enough as it was, but wanted the movie to impress me more. Aside from the previously mentioned sequence where Barry explores the city for the first time, no scenes have any "wow" factor. The movie is filled with celebrity cameos, which for the most part don't come across as being out of place or a desperate case of stunt casting. Rock musician Sting and actor Ray Liota come across as great sports in their brief self-mocking cameos as themselves. A few other cameos, such as Larry King, come across as being a bit too cute. And then there is one that left me scratching my head a little. Talk show queen, Oprah Winfrey, provides the voice of the Judge presiding over Barry's case against the honey corporations. My question is why did the movie need her? She only has about three minutes worth of dialogue total, it doesn't exploit her, and it just seems to be an attempt to add another celebrity name to the credits. The movie wouldn't have been any worse or better without her, and if you're not going to use a celebrity's talents, why bother using them? If they wanted to use her, why not have her play herself, and have Barry go on her show or something?
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