| BEE MOVIE |
 2007 - USADirector: Steve Hickner, Simon J. Smith
- Reviewed by Vickie
Sorry, but I hated Shrek; I thought it was profoundly obnoxious and unfunny. Even worse was A Shark Tale, which I had the supreme misfortune of sitting through at TIFF several years ago. Unfortunately, Bee Movie suffers from many of the same ailments as all the other Dreamworks Animation films: uninspired writing, non-human characters made to look human, and meandering, uninteresting stories that seem constructed simply to insert pop-culture references as often as possible. Here, Jerry Seinfeld voices Barry the bee, a soon-to-be drone dreaming of what exciting adventures lie just outside the entrance to his hive. So, instead of signing up for a job at the massive honey-producing factory (also located within the hive) like his best friend Adam (voiced by Matthew Broderick) and thousands of their peers, he sets out into the great blue yonder. There, he's saved from certain death by a completely underdeveloped and, frankly, really weird human woman named Vanessa (voiced by Renée Zellweger as though she had six espressos before hitting the recording booth). Barry falls in love instantly (what?!) and so does Vanessa (WHAT?!). So, one assumes that this will be a film about the unlikely romance between a girl and her bug... but no. Before you can say "Norma Rae!", the film takes a misguided turn and suddenly it's a corporate-corruption melodrama...the story of the honey industry, and how humans have been robbing bees of their hard-earned honey for hundreds of years. It inexplicably morphs into a David vs. Goliath tale, with Barry engaged in a high-profile court battle with Ray Liotta (voicing himself), who's become a honey magnate with his own honey company. What the frick?! We're "treated" to a tedious, humorless courtroom sequence that feels like it goes on for hours, where Ray stands trial and John Goodman voices a colossal buffoon of a defense attorney. (The judge? Oprah.) Surely, you're thinking, that has to be the worst of it, right? Wrong! Because, just when you think Bee can't get any more boring and plodding, the final third becomes an environmental-message film! That's right, folks! Soon, the entire planet is on its knees because of the repercussion of the honey-trial outcome, sending Barry and friends on a (by now) ridiculous and pointless mission to save humanity AND nature! I couldn't wait for it to be over. Given all the talent at work behind the scenes, one would expect a far, far superior film. One would be mistaken. I know Seinfeld helped pen the screenplay with several of the writers from his long-running series, but the result is just bad. Stinky bad. Leaden. Worst of all, dull. Animated films—good ones, anyway—rely on stunning visuals combined with sharp, smart, clever screenplays (see: Finding Nemo or Toy Story), but this one is merely pretty to look at. The jokes are obvious and flat—ooh! a Larry King bee! FUNNY! *yawn*—and the script is peppered with overt "fact-of-the-hour" tidbits aimed at, one assumes, educating the audience on the life cycle of the honey bee. The voice talent is likewise wasted. Despite his billing, Chris Rock is in the movie for maybe three minutes... two short scenes in total. Ditto Ray Liotta, who had maybe four lines in all. Oprah gets a handful, but John Goodman (?!) goes on and on and on and on. And why were so many characters SHOUTING ALL THE TIME? Patrick Warburton, a staple in the voiceover industry, SCREAMS all of his lines, and Zellweger, as mentioned previously, is so shrill and manic that she renders Vanessa completely unlikable. Seinfeld is fine, but he's no Ellen. Story-wise, the movie didn't work for me, either. Aside from the disjointed plotting—it's a love story! it's a courtroom drama! it's a green flick!—I was put off by the animators' decision to make the bees as human as possible. They have bee bodies but human faces. They walk, they drive little bee cars on extensive bee highways, they work in tiny bee offices at a giant factory and live in bee houses with bee TVs, bee furniture and bee clothes. And don't get me started on the logistics of the hive itself – based on the amount of stuff we're led to believe goes on in Barry's hive (i.e., all of the above and then some), it would have to be the size of a two-storey house from the outside... yet, when we do see the hive from the outside, it's the size of... well, a normal bee hive. WHAT? Whatever. I checked my watch throughout and felt every last one of this movie's 90-odd minutes. I'm sure it'll please the under-nine set, but anyone craving a well-told animated tale had best look elsewhere. DVD NOTES - by LindaThe two-disc "Very Jerry Edition" of Bee Movie on DVD gives you a calvalcade of extras that even the most die-hard fan might eventually tire from slogging through. On the feature disc (the "More Jerry" disc), Jerry Seinfeld does a commentary track with the filmmakers, plus you get to see his (in)famous bee-suit flying entrance at the Cannes Film Festival, a featurette about the cast, alternate endings and "lost" scenes, and more. On the second disc (the "More Barry" disc) there is even more stuff, like a music video (of "We Got the Bee"), a featurette about the tech side of the film, an interactive doo-dad called "Meet Barry B. Benson", and a bunch of educational tidbits, like "The Ow Meter" which tells you what it is like to be stung by a bee (no, your remote doesn't stab you with a pin) ... Plus, if you pop the DVD into your computer, there's even more stuff like printable colorig pages (cool), honey-related recipes (neat!) and printable Bee Movie Sudoku game sheets (huh?). |
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I don't know anyone who was more excited to see this movie than I was.
I love animated films. Anything by Pixar or the folks at Fox animation—gold. Pure cinematic gold. The only thing causing me some
pre-screening anxiety was the fact that Bee Movie is a
Dreamworks Animation production... and I'm SO not a fan of their work.
