Bee Movie

Because of their insect qualities and all too recognizable stinging aspects, there aren’t that many movies that highlight a positive side to bees. It’s an odd question or quandary to even bring up, but for all the kind of stories that have come from fiction that highlight an animal’s perspective or included an animal sidekick, bees (despite being a very common animal throughout the world) aren’t usually shown off even against other insects of their kind like ants and flies. That’s probably why Bee Movie, which was released by DreamWorks in 2007, was such a strange movie that a lot of people had no idea how to take it. They didn’t know whether it was good, bad, a terrible idea, a good idea, it was just an odd experiment didn’t shake too many boats at the time of its release. But if there’s anything that the internet has proven true is that oddness is prime for exploitation on the online space. A bee named Barry B Benson (voiced by Jerry Seinfeld) lives in his own beehive with his bee family after just graduating bee university after getting score of all B’s (get used to a lot of stupid puns in this movie), but he is shocked when he discovers that a bee is relegated to only one job for life. Not wanting to be restricted to only one thing, he journeys outside the hive on a mission and unwittingly finds himself meeting a female human named Vanessa (voiced by Renee Zellweger) who he, quite creepily, falls in love with, which causes a lot of worry from his parents (voiced by Kathy Bates and Barry Levinson) and from his best friend, Adam (voiced by Matthew Broderick). Spending more time together, Barry soon realises that the honey they make is being sold for the humans to use in their everyday lives in grocery stores and other forms of consumption. Seeing this as misjustice, he decides to band all his bee friends together and sue the human race, all building up to whether or not all the bees will have the honey to themselves. Just from the set-up alone, its obvious this movie is very strange and pretty awkward; it has a lot of stupid puns, an unfocused narrative structure, and overall feels pretty mindless and much less accessible and even enjoyable than some of DreamWorks’ other material. But with that said, the film did do well at the box office (grossing $293.5 million worldwide on a budget of $150 million), grew a cult following over the years due to online coverage through multiple memes highlight and mocking the absurdity of the project, and on its own merit, there are some nice colors, creative contraptions, and likeable actors, that make it dumb, but harmless.

Starting off as an idea from Jerry Seinfeld (who stars and helped write the movie) who got director Steven Spielberg to suggest the idea to co-founder of DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg, about making a movie about insects, which resulted in its creation (even though Antz was their first animated feature already). In many ways, the film is more ambitious than you’d expect for a concept about bees, but at the same time, that ambition isn’t really equalled out with the same amount of quality. Many of the plot points set up in this movie are on their own, interesting ideas that, while definitely silly and can go into a creepy range a time (a romance between a human and a bee is not something that ever needed to exist), could work for a strange kid’s film with a heavier focus on comedic sensibilities. From a bee trying to stand out amongst a crowd that sticks to one lifestyle for their entire existent, to a bee and a human forming a connection, to a bee suing the human race for the use of their honey, it does keep changing things up and therefore never gets predictable, and maybe because of its bizarre atmosphere that feels more along the lines of a sitcom than a kid’s movie, it isn’t as formulaic and therefore, offers more twists and turns than usual. The writers for this movie along with Seinfeld are Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, and Andy Robin (with additional help from Chuck Martin and Tom Papa), people who have either worked with or for Seinfeld on other projects (Feresten and Robin both worked on the popular American sitcom Seinfeld), so it explains the more joke-heavy script which creates a lot of off-the-walls and even surreal situations that don’t feel like they exist in the normal realm of reality. The downside to this style is that while it may keep the plot unexpected, it is also incredibly sloppy put-together as every time a new narrative direction is created and started, the one previous is complexity forgotten about and never has a proper resolution, making many of the scenes prior feel less like an overarching narrative that is building upon its ideas and more like lazy wasted padding that is getting bored with one direction and is just throwing another one at the wall to see how it sticks. The film has a really odd pacing to it, it never feels like it’s taking enough time to flesh out these ideas before immediately moving onto something else, and is instead just kind of banking on its strange premise and unique atmosphere to draw people in. Because of its strange delivery, it’s also hard to gage who the film is actually for, as the dumb puns, visual gags and quirky visuals won’t be able to interest adults, but the very mellow relaxed tone, heavier focus on dialogue moments over action set-pieces, and abundance of celebrity cameos won’t appeal to kids either, so it can’t really work for anyone. The film’s two directors, Simon J. Smith and Steve Hickner, kind of match this idea of mismatching styles, as while Hickner was one of the directors on The Prince of Egypt and worked as either an animator or producer on several other strong movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid and Balto, Simon J. Smith had only directed Shrek 4-D and Far Far Away Idol before this film, with only some animation credits on the first two Shrek films, Antz and Chicken Run, which does explain a lot.

The characters that they do have, while certainly not the best and can sometimes feel more like insert for their voice actors rather than fleshed out roles, aren’t too bad and because of the small cast in the film, it gives you more time to focus solely on the leads and it makes them pretty memorable. It’s a film that really isn’t going to have any strong character development or arc, so you just have to rely on the writing and the actor’s capabilities to win you over, and in some ways, they kind of do. Because of the joke atmosphere the film has, as well as the talent in front of and behind the screen that know how to handle that dialogue, it allows the actors to be decently charming and work well off each other. They are definitely actors that can be a little divisive in many ways, as both Jerry Seinfeld and Renee Zellweger are known for not always picking the best movies and have been skipped by many people in the past for their one-track kind of acting style and distinct personas, but they do both strangely work in this film. Seinfeld is a good-hearted wise cracker and Zellweger is a good-hearted eccentric, both are very likeable and definitely work more as a friendship than a romantic couple, but it still does result in a decent friendship and the chemistry between the two in that department isn’t too bad. Some of the supporting roles like Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, Kathy Bates, Barry Levinson and Chris Rock, and even bizarre cameos like Ray Liotta, Larry King (whose a bee in this world) and Sting are strange choices to say the least, but with this movie bizarre random set-up it becomes more acceptable when they pop up, and most of the actors that are tasked with performing actual characters (as opposed to the last three who literally just play themselves), they aren’t too bad (even Matthew Broadrick, who isn’t really known as that good of an actor, is actually done okay in this movie).

The film’s animation works well in some areas and not so well in others. There is a creativity and ingenuity that can be taken from a set-up like this since bees are intuitive creatures, and it does create for a pretty interesting world with how they design the hive. Some of the contraptions they create within this bee lifestyle has an element of likeable oddness to it that works on a kid-centric mindset but is still inventive and appreciated. It is also a very colorful movie as it’s a film focused on flowers and greenery which allows for some very nice nature shots and a lot of vibrant imagery in the outside world as well as inside the bee’s hive. Being a bee movie, yellow and gold especially looks good, but even most of the floral colors do have a softness to them that makes them pop, but not in a striking way. The film also has great flying scenes that feel like they were made so that an audience member could experience it in 3D (and to its credit, it looks like it would’ve been pretty good). Something that DreamWorks really excels at is simulating motion, especially when flying and whether it’s how they frame the scenes, how the motion reacts, or how they capture the depth perception, it looks and feels like being on a roller coaster and in the moment as it’s happening.  With that said, the animation on the models looks a little rushed and plastic-y in moments. The bees themselves look nice, colorful and have distinct designs despite how many of them there are, but the humans look more like dolls than living creatures. The movements aren’t really ones that allow for much sporadic movement or cartoonish antics as there is a weight behind their actions, but they do have some great expressions that give a bit more to the art style.

Bee Movie is by no means a great movie; it has some stupid lines, very confusing and unfocused plot lines that aren’t given much time to develop, and even the prospect of making a movie about a bee suing the human race just feels dumb, even for DreamWorks who have been known for making some pretty strange films that don’t connect with audiences (especially nowadays). But behind that is some creative environments and atmosphere, some very nice visuals, a likeable cast, and a few good funny scenes underneath some of the lesser ones. This isn’t something that should be heavily praised and remembered (outside of the internet who have breathed a fresh new life into it), but if someone likes and wants to see a movie about bees, this will entertain them nicely. This isn’t a film with story-arcs or depth, but for some light-hearted fluff with good jokes and good voice acting, it is worth a viewing. Check it out and see if this movie is sweet enough for you.