Bee Movie [2007] - DVD (Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zellweger - Dir: Steve Hickner)

There aren't a lot of choices in a bee's life: a bee attends a few days of school, graduates from college, and chooses a job in the hive that he'll labour at for the rest of his life. Barry (Jerry Seinfeld) is different from his best friend Adam (Matthew Broderick) and all the other bees: he wants to see the world outside the hive and can't begin to contemplate doing the same job for his entire life. Naturally, the life of the "pollen jock" bees appeals to Barry because it's the only job that takes a bee outside the hive and into the larger human world. Once outside the hive, Barry breaks the most sacred bee law and speaks to a human named Vanessa (Renée Zellweger) in order to thank her for saving his life. A relationship quickly blossoms and leads Barry to the discovery that humans are stealing honey from the bees and selling it for their own profit. Vowing to hurt the humans the one place they'll feel it, Barry brings a legal suit against the honey industry and the courtroom drama begins. There are some hysterical moments in the film, as one would expect from a Seinfeld production, and an abundance of one-liners, double-meanings, slapstick humour, and innuendo-laden dialogue that will keep adults guffawing throughout the show. Still, the whole concept of seeing the life of a common pest through non-human eyes is getting repetitive thanks to films like Ratatouille, Flushed Away, Open Season, and Over the Hedge. It should be noted, though, that this first foray into animation by Jerry Seinfeld was four years in production due to its collaborative nature, so its theme may actually have well pre-dated all of the aforementioned films. More than just a comical film about the life of one very different honey bee, Bee Movie is a social commentary that pokes fun at human behaviour while stressing the importance of doing even the most menial job well and championing the power of working together toward a common goal. There's even a lesson to be learned from the bees about controlling one's temper. --Tami Horiuchi

Customer Reviews of Bee Movie [2007]

moviebuff05
uk
4th November 2008

loved it loved it loved it!
I really like it!! A fun film with great animation and a good cast of actors!It's worth a watch and can be seen again and again!

alimack
Glasgow, Scotland.
21st October 2008

B's about right
This is a very average film.
It's mildly amusing but Dreamworks films aren't a patch on their Pixar equivalents: Cars, Toy Story 2 even raising Nemo are all superior to this.

It tries to be funny and make serious points, but descends into whimsy quite quickly, the bee human relationship is just ridiculous and it's impossible to suspend belief enough for this.

Jerry Seinfeld just seems to confirm that he's washed up in comedy terms (see the Microsoft ads for further confirmation).

I was bored by the time their was a big twist! maybe this would appeal to kids but the test of these films is that all ages can get something from them - Wall-E is just streets ahead of this.

Don't bother unless forced by your kids!

vidsim
BC, Canada
16th October 2008

Disappointing Bee
I got this because I like cartoon movies, but was underwhelmed. A friend of mine took his 5 yr son and walked out because his son was bored. I can understand why. The story takes a while to get going. Granted the animation is good and there are some good jokes, but hard to understand if you're a kid. I thought they was enough to make a good 30 min Seinfeld cartoon episode but not a full length animation film. The Simpsons worked better at the adult and kids level. Rataouille and Wall-E were more entertaining.

just me
UK
30th September 2008

A nice blend for adults and children
I liked this film, my wife likes this film and so do my children (5 and 3 at time of writing).

For me its success is that it is well made, has a simple plot line my children can follow and enough detail and humour for us grown ups not to get bored. It doesn't matter if the little uns don't get (all) the jokes, they're not meant to.

One star off for the predictable plot line.

one-eyed Jack
England
21st September 2008

The girls said 4
You would think that a film such as this could only be aimed at children, but I have to say that I considered some elements of the tale, and some of the countless funny lines, seem to be better suited to adults. Seinfeld, never my cup of tea at the best of times, takes the leading role and partly wrote the script too, so to me it seems hardly surprising that it's not as childish as the marketing suggested. But it's what my primary-school-age children thought that really matters, and they gave it the sums up. They said it was funny and they must be telling the truth as they were laughing quite a bit throughout. It's interesting though that unlike other animated films like this of the past decade or so, they didn't ask to watch it again immediately afterwards, and in fact they didn't ask at all until I suggested they see it again a few days later. They said they preferred it to Wall:e, but they enjoyed Kung Fu Panda and Ratatouille more.

So although they gave it 4 stars, having watched it myself I'm not sure it deserves a 'very good' rating. I'm sure that hundreds of people worked passionately to produce and create it and they are doubtless proud of it, but as a consumer I think it merits only an "Above Average, worth a try" label from me : 3 stars. Three and a half if I could. It's good, but there are better children's animated films than this one.