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Bee Movie (2007)

Director: Steve Hickner, Simon J. Smith

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4 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out New York

Give points for thouroughness to the drones behind DreamWorks’ latest bid for blockbuster toon supremacy: If there’s a joke that can be harvested from the secret life of bees, they will suck every last ounce of comic nectar out of it. Everything, from our fuzzy friends’ short life spans devoted to hard labor to making nature’s couture of yellow and black stripes look chic, becomes fodder for “funny.” Wink-nudge pop-cultural references swarm the proceedings; if you imagine that Sting won’t show up to be gamely mocked, think again. And all similarities between these born-work-die hive denizens and their clock-punching counterparts in the human world are underlined in bold. Wow, bees…they’re so like us, right?

Corny puns and beating anthropomorphism to death are standard operating procedures for most animated features, of course, and even the dubious procapitalism climax is forgivable. But who’s kidding whom? Bee Movie doesn’t really care about anything—narrative cohesion, character arcs, emotional resonance—associated with savvy modern family entertainment. It’s just a $150 million setup for Jerry Seinfeld to do a weak version of his didja-ever-notice? stand-up act. The suspension of disbelief is stretched to the breaking point, starting with Seinfeld’s Barry B. Benson chatting up a human female (Zellweger) for a potential interspecies romance (seriously: ick!) and ending with barely connected vignettes involving courtroom showdowns, floral apocalypses and landing an out-of-control 747. You might have been able to get away with stuff like this in the pre-Pixar age. Not anymore.

Author: David Fear

Time Out New York Issue 631: November 1–7, 2007

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User reviews of this film

anus said...

Posted on Nov 05 2007 19:22 u smell like crap

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steven Holt said...

Posted on Nov 02 2007 14:02 this movie was one of the worst animated films of all time.
Oh, the difference a writer makes.
When Jerry had his awesome sitcom, he was surrounded by an amazing writing staff, led by Alec Berg.
Jerry himself said in various interviews that he was a mediocre standup surrounded by great writers and character actors (true).
So, on to this movie:
Barry B. Benson (voiced by Seinfeld) is suing the human race for stealing honey from bees. Sounds HILARIOUS, right?
The execution is LAME, the structure is lifted directly from ANTZ, and you can really BEE doing something better with your time. The jokes are few and far between, the funny jokes even more rare. I don't know how this suckfest could be so awful with so many people working on it, but it's not worth your money or time. Maybe next time, Jerry.

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Vasco said...

Posted on Nov 01 2007 19:02 Awful film. Idiots who give it 6 stars because they thought dumb jokes like mulva were cutting edge are equally dumb. This is a banal film and Seinfeld is out there using his star power to malign a woman who his wife ripped off (he even suggested that she would be a killer!) Putrid.

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Seinfeld Fan said...

Posted on Nov 01 2007 12:10 I haven't watched the movie, but Jerry Seinfeld is "Da Man!"

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