Bee Movie (2007)
Last week, Roger Ebert wrote that Autumn 2007 is such a good season for movies that even one of the slasher films (P2) is pretty good. I would like to borrow that line of logic: Autumn 2007 is such a good season for movies that even an animated film targeted for children and not created by PIXAR is actually pretty good. Bee Movie is one of those films I would have never seen unless to appease someone else, but I’m glad I did, it’s delightful. More importantly, Bee Movie is the kind of delightful that isn’t trying to sell you Mountain Dew or action figures every ten minutes.
Bee Movie is, as I’m sure you know by now, a project of Jerry Seinfeld’s. Seinfeld co-wrote and co-produced and also lends his voice to the film’s protoganist, Barry B. Benson, a bee approaching graduation who’s having difficulty deciding what he wants to do with his life. Plenty of adolescent humans face a similar terror every year, but Barry’s problem may cause a few humans to re-evaluate and appreciate their position: when Barry chooses a job he’s stuck with it for the rest of his life, whether it be stirring honey, or keeping the honey from dripping over. The bees who fly outside the hive to pollinate the flowers are the jocks of this world, and like human jocks, they are blessed with a genetic luck that’s beyond choice. Barry could live with that occupation but he’s, unfortunately, an adventurer in a honey stirrer’s body. Then he meets Vanessa Bloom (Renee Zelwegger) and his confusion, already approaching a tipping point, goes topsy turvey.
So yes, Seinfeld has brought us a remake of The Graduate with bees, complete with a quote of that film’s famous scene of Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) floating idly in his swimming pool. Then a funny thing happens, just as you sit back and figure you’ve gotten the whole thing figured out, Bee Movie changes gears radically. No fair ruining the film’s appealingly loosey goosey plot points, but the film is essentially three short films loosely tied together through our confused little hero. One of the primary charms of Bee Movie is that it’s totally in tune with how children play, how children can change a story at a whim and follow a totally unrelated digression no matter how silly. Bee Movie is silly, and I mean that as a compliment.
★★½
November 12th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Can I be forgiven for thinking this movie would be ass?
I’m glad to hear it’s not, but I’m probably still not going to run out to see it. I trust your judgement, but it just doesn’t feel like my cup of tea.
I’ll go without protest if someone else brings it up, but I have so many things to catch up on as it is.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:36 am
You’re forgiven, I was on the same page as you before I saw the movie, but it ended up being a nice little surprise.
November 25th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I’m sorry, I refuse to see this on so many principles. I find Seinfeld an arrogant jackass. And I do think it’s certainly selling things, as witnessed by the media overload.
I also love movies that tell you to fight the system…but would never tell you to fight THEIR system by not buying those Mickey D Bee meals…
November 26th, 2007 at 5:25 am
Hey Christian, nice to see you on the site. The funny thing is, I don’t really disagree with anything you wrote here (I definitely should’ve been a little more careful with that line about the advertising) but, overall, I found Bee Movie to be appealingly loosey goosey. Great movie? Certainly not. But it was less offensive than most children’s films and took me by surprise (admittedly not a ringing endorsement.)