Review of Bee Movie (2007) by Mrmoviebuff — 10 Jan 2017

'The Bee Movie' has a very interesting premise, especially for a harmless family film, but that's only from the marketing... it's what actually happens in the movie you need to see for yourself. Not only does the plot seem ambitious, but it also comes across as creepy, and weird.

.. especially for a family film. We meet a honeybee named Barry B. Benson (voiced by Jerry Seinfeld, who also co-wrote the movie), who has recently graduated from college, and is excited to be working at Honex industries, a honey making workplace where bees are destined to work until the day they die.

This news doesn't phase any of the other bees that are keen to get started, but for some reason, this bothers Barry. The idea of working until the day he dies only bothers him simply because he seems to think like a human.

He is a bee, why doesn't he act like one? Why does his mind work differently to everyone else? You don't see a human being bothered about why trees are tall and green, other human beings accept it, and you just do because that's how it is.

Barry joins the Pollen Jocks, who travel outside of the hive to collect pollen from flowers. Once Barry gets lost in the city rain, he ends up inside the house of a human florist named Vanessa (Renee Zelwegger).

Her boyfriend, Ken (Patrick Warburton) attempts to squash him, but Vanessa decides that this is not the right thing to do, and wants him to be set free. Barry wants to thank Vanessa for her saving his life, but this would break the code as bees are not allowed to communicate with humans, somehow, Barry and Vanessa do communicate (I assume in this movie, bees and humans speak the same language?), which lead to a close bond, and then to an awkward and creepy attraction which someone must have questioned when this movie was pitched.

There is nothing more to say about this movie other than that it's creepy, not funny, not clever, and just forgettable. The film's co-writer and star, Jerry Seinfeld must have had some good intentions when making this family film, but all the ideas end up getting lost in translation.

Whatever sounded good on paper, clearly didn't translate very well as far as it's visual execution.