Tuesday, November 27, 2007

New Movie Review: "Bee Movie"

Jerry Seinfeld conquered television with 9 years of his hit show Seinfeld. AftIn the ten years since the show went off the air, Seinfeld has layed relatively low, going back to stand-up. He makes his return to the spotlight in the animated movie with the deliciously punny title of Bee Movie.

Bee Movie is, predictably, about bees. They talk and work and have Jewish mannerisms. Seinfeld's bee avatar, Barry B. Benson, is the typical lead in an animated film, one who strikes against their established routine to explore something "new." In Barry's case, this is the human world, where he meets a florist voiced by Renee Zellweger. The two form an unlikely friendship/light romance. Eventually he discovers that humans eat the honey his fellow bees produce, sues the human race, winning, and causing the bees to stop producing honey because they now have all they need. Barry then needs to reverse this new status quo with a plan involving the Rose Bowl. The plot is typical animated fare, but the jokes are kid-like with a Seinfeldian twist.

Jerry gets his celebrity friends to pitch in and help sell the jokes. Chris Rock is a mosquito, Oprah Winfrey is a judge, Larry King plays a bee version of himself, and Ray Liotta plays, well, Ray Liotta. Puns fly at an enjoyable rate, and Jerry's enthusiasm sells about half the jokes. And unlike most other computer animated movies, there really isn't any need to scour the background for easter eggs as all the jokes are presented front and center. Watching it in a theater filled with both kids and their parents, there were periods where only the kids were laughing, periods were only the adults were laughing, and many periods where both groups laughed together.

Now in its third week of release, Bee Moviedebuted at number two, then reached the top of the box office, and is now currently residing in fifth place. What does that tell us? It tells us that this is a movie that has wide appeal, but may appear to be a "miss" to some. However, I highly recommend it if you are a fan of Jerry's or computer animated films.

4 Hivo versus TiVo debates out of 5.

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2 Comments:

Blogger David McIntyre said...

I think it took me a while to accept that the plot was going to be vastly different every 10 minutes and nothing was going to make sense. After this dawned on me I was free to enjoy the jokes moment by moment. Unfettered by the fact the wanderlust plot was forgotten before act 2 and the re-pollination effort could only be accomplished in central park because there are apparently no bee's closer to California then that. Well, I almost unfettered I guess.

2:38 AM  
Blogger Adam Entertainment said...

Oh yeah, basically each of the acts had a different plot. Which made the plot synopsis I read before the movie meaningless.

12:12 AM  

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