A bee (voice of Jerry Seinfeld) voyages out of the hive and falls in love with a human woman.  When he finds out that humans are stealing bee’s honey, he sues to get it back, but this causes problems.

CRITIQUE

Bee Movie is a very uneven animated tale that has a few funny moments but is ultimately just rather underwhelming, mostly because its story goes in some dull, uninteresting directions.  The tale is helped by a lot of solid voice work (with Jerry Seinfeld and Renee Zellweger voicing the lead roles), but ultimately this is just sort of forgettable, and reminds one of how much better Pixar is at doing films like this.

The main character here is Barry, who is graduating from bee school and is about to go into the job market, though he isn’t thrilled to learn that whatever job he chooses he will be stuck doing for the rest of his life.  Barry winds up flying out into the outside world of Manhattan with the pollen gatherers, where in one of the film’s better-done sequences he gets stuck on a tennis ball, bounced around a court, and then launched into the sky, where he ultimately winds up taking refuge in the apartment of friendly human Vanessa, who he is able to talk to.

Around this section, the tale starts hitting its stride, but then it goes off the rails when Barry is appalled that humans are stealing honey from bees to sell it and eat it.  He files a lawsuit, which leads to a rather dull court case, and then a strained aftermath involving a quest to save all the flowers in the world, a plotline that never makes much logical sense, even in the context of talking bee movies.

Possibly because of the heavy creative involvement of Seinfeld, the movie never seems to decide whether it is for adults or kids.  Though Pixar films are adept at being for both, here too often this doesn’t seem to be for either; there are too many big ideas to really entertain little kids, though the bulk of the story is so simplistic that adults are unlikely to be caught up in it either.  A lot of the clever dialogue just isn’t very clever, and when good supporting characters show up (like a mosquito voiced by Chris Rock) they don’t stick around for long. 

Even the ultimate theme, that mindless work is good and important, and that Barry’s questioning this led to problems, feels like an odd piece of propaganda rather than a solid idea to build a film around.  Ultimately, this isn’t an awful movie, it’s just sort of a flat, mediocre one, some solid sequences bobbing around in an idea that doesn’t really come together all that well.

THE VIDEO

Bee Movie is presented in widescreen.  The visuals are fairly crisp, though the computer animation rarely manages to be all that visually-appealing.

THE AUDIO

Bee Movie is presented in English and French 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround.  Dialogue, music and sound effects come through clear.  There are English, French and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There are a lot of extras in this set, though for the most part it’s quantity over quality.

There’s a Commentary with Jerry Seinfeld and assorted directors, producers, a writer and the editor, that is only okay info and banter-wise.  And given the number of people in the room, it has a lot of silent spots along the way.

There are 5 minutes of Lost Scenes, 3 in all, that are voice tracks and sketches for scenes that were never fully animated.  None of them are missed.

There are 14 minutes of Alternate Endings in the same format; many are variations of each other, trying to resolve a romantic storyline that never really worked anyway.

There are 16 TV Juniors totaling 23 minutes, basically short live-action bits featuring Jerry Seinfeld roaming around Dreamworks studios.  There aren’t many laughs, while watching them all in a row starts getting in a little painful.

Better are two Live Action Trailers for the film, totaling 4 minutes.

A 3-minute feature on a stunt Jerry did at Cannes, in which he put on a bee costume and flew down some wires, just seems a bit too goofy.

Inside the Hive: The Cast of the Movie is a 14-minute behind-the scenes featurette focusing on all the voicework in the movie, and it has some good moments.

The Tech of Bee Movie is a 7-minute piece focusing on the computer animation, though other than “we had a lot of computer power” there isn’t a lot of real detail here.

There is a bland 2–minute Music Video for “We Got The Bee” (a remake of the Go-Gos’ “We Got The Beat” in which kids run around New York painting things black and yellow.

Meet Barry B. Benson is semi-interactive, in that you can decide what questions (out of the 11 provided) to ask Barry.  But the answers are very clip-heavy; there’s not much new material here.

Dreamworks’ Video Jukebox contains music videos from 7 Dreamworks releases, including Shrek 1, 2 & 3, Flushed Away, A Shark Tale, Madagascar and Over the Hedge.

The Buzz About Bees tries to give kids some information about bees, but it is very clip-heavy.  Better is the amusing The Ow Factor, which ranks various types of bees on how painful their sting is.

That’s Un-Bee-Lievable! is an informative interactive trivia quiz about bees.

Be A Bee asks a bunch of multiple choice questions, then tells you your ideal bee job.

Pollination Practice is a very dull video game for the TV.

There’s a DVD-Rom that apparently has more games, but it’s not very user-friendly; I couldn’t get it to work on either of my computers.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Devoted Seinfeld fans and animated film completists might want to check this out, but for most audiences there just isn’t enough here that’s really all that solid.