Bee Movie Review

Hey Folks. It's been a long week here, but things will be back to normal soon, I promise. In the meantime, I took down the "Updating Daily" proclamation from the top of the blog, since I should really be honest with myself.

Anyway, over the weekend we made it to a matinee of Bee Movie. Sadly, at no point did the score replicate the song "Aqualero do Brasil," the bustling music at the heart of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, as it did in the trailers. But it still does all the particulars right, although Dreamworks is still lagging behind Pixar for CGI wizardry.

The plot is relatively simple- Jerry Seinfeld's anthropomorphic bee graduates from college (which took three days), and is stunned to find he'll work one job for the rest of his life. Naturally he seeks adventure in the outside world, which leads him to a friendship with human florist Renee Zellwegger, and ultimately into a lawsuit against all humans for stealing bee honey. As an upcoming college graduate myself, I sympathized with Seinfeld's apprehension at the job search all too well.

It's not hard to follow, and the parallel's between the bee world and the human world allow for humorous send-ups that make Bee Movie more than just a kid's film. The voice cast has some excellent people with plenty of range and experience in animation (like Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, and David Herman), but is also overstuffed with big names for the sake of big names: Zellwegger and Matthew Broderick don't really distinguish themselves, and there are multitudes of cameos for no good reason- Oprah Winfrey as a judge?

The lawsuit against humanity for stealing honey has unforeseen consequences for the natural world as well- ultimately I was unsure whether or not Bee Movie was praising or condemning the main character's rebellion against soulless order. But to expect a tremendously sharp worldview from a film about bees might be expecting a bit much.

In the end, it's a funny way to pass the time, and it's a lot cheaper to go to a matinee of Bee Movie than to pay to see Jerry Seinfeld live.

When to See it: If You Get Around to It