Bee Movie
By Karen WilsonMPAA Rating: PG for mild suggestive humor
Theatrical Release: November 2, 2007
Genre: Comedy
Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes
Plot: The young honeybee, Barry Benson (voiced by writer/comedian Jerry Seinfeld) is thrilled to be graduating from college until he realizes that his new job in the hive will be his only employment for the rest of his short bee life. Anxious for some adventure, Barry sneaks out and in New York’s Central Park meets kindly florist Vanessa (the voice of Renee Zellweger), and discovers that the honey his fellow bees work so single-mindedly to make is being stolen by the humans. Outraged, Barry, Vanessa and his fellow bee Adam (Matthew Broderick’s voice) decide to take the honey-stealing people to court to get back sole rights to their beloved honey.
Sex/Nudity: The mildest inference of bee-human interspecies romance.
Violence/Gore: Barry battles the massive human world from dodging speeding tennis balls and mack trucks, to a scary rainstorm and humans wielding Italian Vogues as bee swatters.
Profanity: A character exclaims that the toilet contains “poo water” when Barry falls in.
Will Kids Like It?
Surely the bulk of the Seinfeld signature word play will sail over the heads of young pre-school viewers, but the animation’s bright colors and earnest affection should win their hearts. The joyful ending and its soundtrack song “Hear Comes the Sun” even had two little girls at my screening dancing in the aisles.But the movie’s marketing blitz with its tie-in coloring books and action figures is definitely targeting grade schoolers, so your school age kids are probably already clamoring for bee stuff. They should also enjoy the movie’s barrage of quotable lines and slapstick pseudo-violence. But this movie will probably induce more eye rolling than chuckling in the jaded older teens.
Will Parents Like It?
Quite a few of Seinfeld's jokes are aimed straight at the parents' funny bones, particularly his topic allusions to pop culture, so adult viewers who miss Jerry's prime time television escapades should get a kick out this film.
Kaboose Review: On the hugely successful NBC sitcom Seinfeld, comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s neurotic alter ego Jerry dumped a long string of gorgeous girlfriends for their minor flaws. But Seinfeld left his crotchety single guy shtick behind when he ended the series, settled down and got married eight years ago. Now raising three children with his cookbook-writing wife Jessica, it makes sense the new dad would focus his attentions on making some kids’ entertainment. Seinfeld conquered the stand-up circuit and prime time television, but an even tougher crowd has got to be a matinee audience of restless, squirmy kids.
In many ways Bee Movie doesn’t stray too far from the familiar Seinfeld comic sensibility. He’s still making wry observations about the oddities of societal interaction, though here the satire focuses on the way Seinfeld imagines the neurotic bees rather than neurotic New Yorkers live in their highly efficient, ordered hives. As Barry the bee ventures out to discover the way the human world works, Seinfeld can juxtapose these two elaborate organisms mocking things like the page count of Italian Vogue and reveling in the intoxicating flavors of a Cinnabon. While your kids may not get the jokes about Barry being interviewed on "Bee TV" by Bee Larry King, you’ll surely chuckle at the visual homage to The Graduate and cameos by Ray Liotta and Sting.
Like the Shrek series with their pop culture patter and bubbly computer-rendered drawings, Bee Movie (also produced by Shrek funders DreamWorks) revels in extreme silliness. Vanessa’s boyfriend Kenny (portrayed by a Seinfeld regular Patrick Warburton), who is jealous of her relationship with the busy bee and furious about a canceled yogurt date, isn’t just dopey he’s a complete buffoon. Then there are the outlandish courtroom scenes, complete with Oprah Winfrey as the voice of the judge and a disgruntled grizzly bear paraded in as evidence, and the climactic finale where a swarm of bees coordinates the landing of a 747.
All of this goofiness though doesn’t prevent Seinfeld and co from emphatically delivering their sincere moral messages. While Barry does come to understand the importance of small jobs in a large, elaborate organization, he still figures out a way to stay an individual. Hard work and the importance of friendship, even interspecies ones, are also lauded. One might say Seinfeld wants to hammer home the possibility that you can have it both ways: one can make the honey and eat it too.
Directed by: Steve Hickner and Simon J. Smith
Cast: Jerry Seinfeld (voice of Barry Benson), Renee Zellweger (voice of Vanessa), Matthew Broderick (voice of Adam), Patrick Warburton (voice of Kenny), Oprah Winfrey (the judge), Chris Rock (Mooseblood mosquito), Kathy Bates (Barry’s mom), Barry Levinson (Barry’s dad), John Goodman (an attorney).
Karen Wilson is a freelance writer living in New York City.
