Movies with Kevin
‘Bee’ Movie Really’s a ‘B’ Movie
© By Kevin Paquet, 2007

There comes a time in every great man’s life when he realizes he’s done so much for the world that nobody’s going to complain if he starts attaching sequins to his clothes. To be a cultural magnate is to be beyond reproach, at least within one’s lifetime. Jerry Seinfeld—whose most famous contribution to the world is the sitcom bearing his name – has recently resurfaced with an animated comedy that is actually funnier if you try not to laugh.

"Bee Movie"—the title is a weak pun made weaker by the fact that this really is a B-movie—is the story of a bee named Barry (Seinfeld) who is part of the graduating class of 9:15 a.m. Having just completed nine days of school, plus one day he took off to wander around the hive, Barry and his friend Adam (Matthew Broderick) are now adults, and it is time for them to choose a job working for the Honex Corporation. They board the orientation tram (the whole inside of the hive looks like the offspring of a hamster habitat and a toy car race track), and their guide cheerfully shows them the jobs they have to choose from.

She explains, to Barry’s horror, that bees may pick whatever jobs they want—but are stuck with them for life. He is so aghast at this that he simply goes for a flight with the "pollen jocks," who are apparently the only bees allowed out of the hive. Despite being wildly unsuited for the job—pollen jocks are bred to be better suited for their job—Barry actually does okay, right up until he gets stuck to a tennis ball, gets lost, and ends up in the House of Doom, population Vanessa and Ken.

To its credit, this movie has A-list talent, as evidenced here by Vanessa (Renee Zellweger and Ken (Patrick Warburton), who collectively generate the bulk of the film’s laughs by chewing the scenery in the vain hope that they can somehow breathe life into the script. Zellweger ends up sounding tipsy as her character swallows plot hole after plot hole. Warburton just yells.

This is not a very good movie, but it occasionally succeeds on the merits of its weakest points. Little things, like Bee Larry King, on BeeNN, crown this film. The writer for this segment was too unimaginative to work this smoothly into the film, instead resorting to the parodic equivalent of Break Glass in Case of Fire: self-reference. Even as Bee Larry King interviews Barry, Barry counter-interviews him about whether or not he knows he looks a lot like the human Larry King. Whether or not you should see this film probably rests on whether or not you think this is funny.

Bonus points for X, Y, and the fact that the orientation tram had instructions in both English and Spanish, partially alleviating my questions about why the talking animals in these kinds of movies always speak English. Kevin gives it three stars out of five.