spoilers within
Jerry Seinfeld said that he was chatting with Steven Spielberg one day and joked that he should make a b movie about a real bee. Spielberg said great and the project was born. It’s a cute story and it makes you wonder if Steven Spielberg would green light any silly idea. Of course, Jerry Seinfeld is a super star in his own right. I’m sure that everyone who meets Steven Spielberg says something along the lines of Hey, I’ve got a great idea for a movie. . .
Bee Movie is story of a bee who doesn’t want to spend his life making honey. He likes honey, but he’s not sure that he wants to do the same job in the Hive for the rest of his life. So he takes a few days off and heads out into the larger world. Once there he meets a woman who saves his life and he breaks Bee Law by talking to her. It’s a match made in a Hollywood movie-kind of a King Kong/Fay Wray kind of love affair.
While our Bee hero is out and about he winds up in a grocery store and sees shelves filled with honey. What is this? he asks in horror, people are stealing our honey. One thing leads to another and Barry the Bee sues humankind to get them to stop stealing the bee’s honey.
In our own world bees seem to be disappearing and no one knows why or how. Bees are small, so even if they all died it’s not like we would be tripping over bee bodies and saying hey, this is bad. So when the bees in the movie win their case and relax plants turn gray and it could be the End of The World as we know it.
Bee movie is a pretty silly film, but it was fun. There were a couple of touching moments and that end of the world thing always gets to me. Jerry Seinfeld gets to deliver a few jokes, but they are mostly lame-as Barry The Bee is not the comedian that Jerry Seinfeld is. The computer animation looked pretty good and it was fun to fly with the bees as they zip in and out of kites over Central Park.
Since this was mostly a kid’s movie the bad guys were not all that bad and all problems are easily fixed in simple and outrageous ways.
The Bee world is a miniature human world, tiny cars, tiny cubicals, complex machinery calling for countless jobs in the making of honey. The usual Rube Goldberg type of setup where long conveyor belts preform mysterious acts to create honey.
There are a number of fun cameos in Bee Movie-Sting makes an appears for stealing the name of a Bee Part, Ray Liotta has his own line of honey since his career has slowed down, and Winnie the Pooh is tranked and his honey pot is handed over to the Bees.
Bee Movie was better than I expected, but to be honest, I didn’t expect much.
