“Bee Movie”DreamWorks PicturesDirected by Steve Hickner and Simon J. SmithWritten by Jerry Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, Barry Marder and Andy Robin
Starring the voices of: Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, John Goodman, Patrick Warburton, Kathy Bates and Rip Torn
Rated PG/90 minutesOpens Nov. 2, 2007Three-and-a-half out of four stars
The sheer, unabashed absurdity of “Bee Movie” is a refreshing alternative to all the dumbed-down, dim-witted, children-only movies from the animation renaissance of the last few years.
Since computer animation officially replaced hand-drawn, Pixar has managed to make consistently excellent movies over the last decade or so.
Everyone else jumped on the animation bandwagon, with mostly mediocre results. DreamWorks Animation made “Antz” and the original (and awesome) “Shrek,” but have also made such forgettable (or, in some cases, awful) films as “Madagascar,” “Over the Hedge” and “Shrek the Third” (joke’s over, guys).
Computer-animated movies are big moneymakers, but unfortunately that’s led to lazy films that appeal almost exclusively to kids — bright colors but absolutely no soul. “Bee Movie” is a delightful exception. While it might not measure up to the best of Pixar’s work — such as this summer’s “Ratatouille,” which is one of the best films of the year — it does have a flair for the sardonic, the satirical and the adult that most animated movies seem to lack. When a Ray Liotta reference pops up out of nowhere and then gets punctuated by a hysterical Ray Liotta appearance 45 minutes later, you know the film is doing what it wants to do, with its own sense of humor, rather than pandering to whatever audience “Madagascar” and its ilk try to pander to. (Disabled children, maybe?)
“Bee Movie” has been Jerry Seinfeld’s pet project for a few years and you can see his stamp all over it. He has a screenplay credit and he voices the main character, Barry Benson, the recent college graduate undergoing a bit of an existential crisis. Barry isn’t content with a world in which he’s stuck in one job for his entire life. He’s sure there’s more “out there” — so he goes looking for it, only to break the principle bee law by talking to a human being, an altruistic florist appropriately named Vanessa Bloome (Renée Zellweger).
True to Seinfeldian comic logic, “Bee Movie” isn’t about Barry finding true love or overcoming his greatest fear or saving a princess, but about fighting against human approbation and proliferation of the bees’ only and precious resource — honey. The outrage Barry expresses at the fact that bears — harbingers of death and the greatest threat of all to the bee kingdom — are being used to market their delicious honey is pure Seinfeld — alongside moments such as Winnie the Pooh’s cameo appearance that are refreshingly reminiscent of the sharp humor that made the original “Shrek” work so well.
The film’s story is hardly complex. It opens with a cutesy introduction to the characters and the story, but as the film goes along it picks up steam. With the help of his friends Vanessa and Adam (Matthew Broderick), Barry takes the honey industry — Big Honey — to court, facing off against a deliciously charismatic lawyer from the Deep South, Layton T. Montgomery (in a great voice performance by the incomparable John Goodman).
Like most animated movies, the story and characters of “Bee Movie” are perhaps a bit too easy to read and predict, but the film does such a good job of playing with convention and satirizing pop culture — and the animation and production design by Alex McDowell is so strong — that you simply take the cookie-cutter elements as part of the territory.
The funniest moments in “Bee Movie” are more than worth it.