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Nov. 16, 2007
The buzz on Bee film
Seinfeld has a mission in new animated movie.
RON FRIEDMAN
Jerry Seinfeld makes his cinematic debut as an animated character in The Bee Movie, the new feature from the creators of Shrek. Nine years after completing the hit sitcom Seinfeld, it appears that he hasn't lost any of his comedic skills.
Bee Movie tells the story of Berry Benson, a worker bee in a natural hive in the heart of New York City's Central Park. The hive is a fantastic world in which thousands of bees drive around in cars, watch television and operate complex machines that turn raw nectar into honey. Benson is pretty much an animated avatar for Seinfeld, complete with running shoes, an observational sense of humor and domineering parents.
We first join Benson when he is faced with a bee's toughest decision. Upon graduation from Bee College, young bees have to decide what role they will take in the hive. Each bee has a job to do and they busily get on with it for their entire lives. When Benson finds out that he will have to choose a job that he will do for the rest of his life, he has an attack of hive fever and decides to give the larger world a glance.
Benson finds that life outside can be exhilarating and enjoyable, especially when he finds a gentle florist, voiced by Rene Zellwinger, who saves him from being squashed and who, eventually, becomes his friend.
The adventure begins when, during a visit to the supermarket with his human companion, Benson discovers that humans eat honey. He decides to find out where it comes from and, catching a lift on the windshield of a transport truck, makes his way to the countryside, to Honey Farms. There, Benson discovers that domesticated bees live in work-camp-like hives and that humans steal their hard-earned honey. Upon seeing that, Benson decides that, in order to put an end to the injustice, he has to sting humans where it hurts the most – and decides to file a lawsuit.
While the movie has a narrative thread – the trial, its outcome and the final realization that bees perform an important function in nature – it seems that the story exists only as a platform for Seinfeld's jokes. That's fine for Seinfeld fans, who have been going without for nine years, because he lays them on thick and fast, but it may be less satisfying for those who are too young to get them or simply don't relate to his deadpan humor. Seinfeld is at his best when he's commenting on nothing. When pigeonholed with a storyline, he is out of his element.
The movie is a bit heavy on bee wordplay and puns, but Seinfeld puts it to good use, taking common sayings and words and adapting them to the context of the bee world. In one scene, where Benson tells his best friend (voiced by Matthew Broderick) about his budding relationship, his reaction is, "Is she Beeish? She's not a wasp is she? Your parents would hate that." In another scene, Benson accuses Sting of profiteering off bees.
In addition to Seinfeld, Zellwinger and Broderick, Bee Movie features the voices of Larry King, Oprah, Sting, Chris Rock and John Goodman, all of whom are given too short an appearance for audiences to really appreciate them.
Bee Movie provides plenty of laughs for both children and adults and will probably make millions in merchandising – to coin a Seinfeld phrase, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
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