Bee Movie Review
Posted by Joseph Lee on 11.04.2007
This is dedicated to all of the victims of the horrible, horrible disease "Hivo".
Featuring the voice talents of:
Jerry Seinfeld as Barry Bee Benson
Renée Zellweger as Vanessa Blume
Chris Rock as Mooseblood Mosquito
Matthew Broderick as Adam Flayman
Patrick Warburton as Ken
John Goodman as Layton T. Montgomery
Story: After going to school for an entire week of his life, Barry Benson decides to leave the hive before choosing one task to do the rest of his life. While on the outside, he meets a human florist and becomes friends. He later learns what exactly is happening to the honey he and other bees work so hard on and decides to sue the human race.
Fun Trivia: The first two movie trailers had Jerry Seinfeld trying to make a live action Bee Movie. After watching the disastrous results, Steven Spielberg asks, "Why don't you just make it a cartoon?"
Except for the original Shrek and Pixar movies, I haven't cared too much for the CGI animated movie craze. The animation is good, sure, but it seems like that for most of them, all of the heart and humor are gone. That's just my personal opinion, of course. I happen to enjoy the old hand-drawn animation style. However with the right talent behind them, these movies can be just as good as their predecessors. I was hoping that was the case with Bee Movie, which was also the return of Jerry Seinfeld.
The best thing I like about this movie is the off-the-wall humor. Sure the bee puns may get on the nerves of most but I felt that they added to the silliness of the movie. Make no mistake about it, nothing about this movie is meant to be taken seriously. It's very silly and very entertaining. The entire movie just has an air about that you can tell they really want you to have fun. Bee puns aside, this movie has a lot of humor for kids and adults. Seinfeld fans will notice his particular style of comedy is present as well.
If you turn your brain off, and try not to think about it, you'll enjoy it. Lots of improbable situations occur that tended to make me question why they'd put something so unrealistic in it. Everyone seems to be accepting of the fact that bees can talk, and are going to sue the human race, for example. Other examples are a human becoming jealous of a bee, bee-airplane shenanigans and more. However, the improbably and silly nature of the whole thing doesn't really detract from the movie if you let it. Just shut your brain off and laugh at it all.
Jerry Seinfeld is back with this movie, and his humor is as well. For those that like Seinfeld, congratulations. You will enjoy this movie. For those that don't "get" him or don't like him, then you may still enjoy this movie. It's just funny. For Seinfeld's first animated outing, he does quite well vocally. A big flaw in animated movies can be when you hear the actor's voice and thinking, "oh here's that actor as this character" instead of "here is that character". A similar situation happened to me with Cars. Seinfeld is able to give Barry his own voice and character and it helps the movie a great deal.
The shining star of this movie is not Seinfeld however, but Patrick Warburton. Sure you've heard his voice in just about everything, but he's really really funny here. Whether it's yelling about how Yogurt Tuesday is cancelled or asking Barry if he enjoys the smell of flames. Warburton just brings something here, and I think it's just a level of insanity that this movie needed. A really crazy character to make everyone laugh regardless. It really works and I enjoyed it here.
Other humorous things you may find interesting are the cameos by a variety of comedy stars. Chris Rock, John Goodman, Eddie Izzard, Rip Torn and Whoopi Goldberg. They even have a maniacal cameo by Ray Liotta! There some other jokes and cameos here and there but it would be a shame to spoil them. I just recommend you go see it for yourself.
The 411: While the adults may be scratching their heads because of the lunacy of it all, Bee Movie provides the laughs. The kids will definitely enjoy this, and the humor provided should be enough to entertain the grown-ups as well.
