Bee Movie

By Linda Winsh-Bolard

It is just a normal family with a son who likes to fly around the house (forbidden) drive too fast in too fancy a car, has a buzz cut and his graduation is coming up! Followed by a instant employment for a corporation who is owned by corporation…all presented with smile on the PR’s lady lips: “we know all the bees work very hard to be able to work all your lives” …”and most bees have small jobs”…it sounds so familiars that it is almost an satirical allegory, or it almost could have been.

Barry (Jerry Seinfeld) and his best bee buddy, Adam (Matthew Broderick), have graduated from the college, and are taking tour through the hive-factory where they have to chose a job. They will work at that job for the rest of their lives. The reality comes as a surprise to Barry, who didn't realize that "bees, as a species, haven't had a day off in 27 million years."
"So you'll just work us to death?" Barry asks the PR bee. "We'll sure try!" she smiles in reply. It doesn’t help that new jobs opening come as the former employees drop dead.

No wonder Barry wants to leaves the hive. Chance provides an opportunity: Barry gets to join the pollen jockeys despite the fact that one has to be bred into that class of bee. While learning about gathering nectar, Barry gets lost in NYC. Trying to avoid both, the rain and the deadly swats of terrified people (you’ve met them), Barry is saved by a human florist Vanessa Bloome (Renee Zellweger). Following charming Vanessa brings Barry to the discovery that humans are harvesting the honey produced by bees enslaved on bee farms. He decides to sue the humans with the help of Vanessa and Adam.

The courtroom scenes, with Oprah Winfrey as a judge and John Goodman as a human attorney, are as good as the pool scene recalling The Graduate.

They also provide the chance to one sting many cultural icons (Ray Liotta, Sting, Connie Chan and even the Winnie Pooh) as well as bring up the question of cause and consequence.

The consequences will eventually bring more, by now somewhat hollow, reminders of various films (Flushed Away, Tarzan, The Incredibles, Antz) and the ultimate plane in distress. That idea could not be saved even by the dedicated pollen jocks.
It is nicely digitally animated, even if it borrows ideas from all around; at least it is honest about that. It has some nice, and even a few stinging, jokes.

It does not have a unifying script or idea. At least three different messages can be found within it (believe in yourself, it’s ok to be different, we have the right to be free) wrapped in the Barry’s character that therefore cannot be consistent or have a natural development. The friendship between a human florist and bee jock is oddly moved to a bizarre, physically impossible, romance. The freedom is questioned by the problem with pollination, which again are rather odd- bees can pollinate without gathering more nectar. And the individual fighter need s the organized multitudes to save the day.

No it is not exactly new, or discovering anything, but then Seinfeld never was. He was always the American homage to the mundane humanity with all of its known but unspoken faults and desires; the temptations were always just as mundane as the sufferings. For many seeing themselves in the characters was the biggest thrill.

Seeing Barry would not quite bring the same, Barry attempts to achieve, but then Barry- is Jerry and some of the jokes are funny, the animation is likable and if the wanders here and there, well few would be looking for much depth in Seinfeld and the laughter is right here. It is not quite and A movie, but it is also not really a B one.

Jerry Seinfeld wrote the movie with "Seinfeld" staffers Spike Feresten and Andy Robin along with Barry Marder, directors Steve Hickner and Simon J. Smith. Voiced by: Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, John Goodman, Patrick Warburton, Chris Rock, Kathy Bates, Barry Levinson, Larry King, Ray Liotta, Sting, Oprah Winfrey, Larry Miller,Sting, Ray Liotta, Megan Mullally, Rip Torn, Michael Richards, Mario Joyner.