Movies Reviews

Movie Review: Bee Movie

By Colin MacLean Nov 2, 2007, 14:06 GMT

Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie is a pleasant enough excursion into the world of computer animation.

I’m not sure just who this movie is aimed at. It’s cute for younger viewers but it lacks the visceral, eye catching, in-your-face Shrekian kind of humour that will keep the little ones entranced for its 90 Minutes. Although the film springs from the creative comic mind of Jerry Seinfeld (who wrote, produced and stars), it misses the humour that made his show a favorite for its long 9 year run. Much of the glory of Seinfeld (the TV
show) was in exploration of life’s minutia – here the subtleties of his particular kind of talent seem largely lost in the explosion of animated colour, sound and movement.In Seinfeld on TV, Jerry just didn’t work up a sweat – Bee Movie works too hard to locate its laughs.Like all good cartoons of this sort, there is a running series of jokes that will give parents a laugh while the kids are enjoying the fast action. The animation is basic. Although Dreamworks has created a lovely palette for the film they make no effort to advance the art of computer animation.
The colours are bright and eye catching. Within the bounds of the simple animation, the human beings, looking like coloured rubber stretched over moulds, do manage to show more, uh, animation than the process has given us before.But the film, unlike “Ratatouille,” never quite comes up with a believable world where human and insect can interact.The story has Barry B. Benson (Seinfeld) unhappy with the boring, repetitive life offered him in the hive. So he breaks out, in a spectacular sequence, with a flight of muscular pollen-gathering bees. While adventuring in the city, he falls for Vanessa (Rene Zellweger in a charming off-centre reading), a human who owns a flower shop. Barry, ignoring an age-old prohibition, actually talks to her and they set up a relationshipAh, how’s that again? Set up a relationship? It’s at this point the film begins to slip away. Soon she has jettisoned her fatheaded boyfriend (an amusing Patrick Warburton), happy to spend her time with her tiny, black and yellow new buddy.When Barry reports back to Mom (Kathy Bates) and Dad (Barry Levinson) that he’s met someone, they ask if she’s bee-ish. Barry’s reply is that she’s not a wasp. Barry comes to believe that humans are ripping off the bees by taking their honey which leads to a lawsuit and a confrontation in court with a good ol’
boy lawyer played with welcome comic brio by an over the top John Goodman. The ending, which slips past the bounds of any believability, has the bees rescuing all the flowers in the world by carrying an aircraft on their back.Chris Rock is funny as a fast-talking mosquito, who turns into a shyster lawyer and gets to deliver the classic line, “I always was a bloodsucking parasite - all I needed was a briefcase.” Larry King pops up as talk-show host, Bee Larry King. Ray Liotta and Sting appear as animated versions of themselves and Opra Winfree is a judge.Bee Movie generates a pleasant buzz while lightly touching the funnybone – not the heart. It’s certainly not up there with Toy Story, Shrek or Finding Nemo as one of the great ones.