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My recent journey through the world of animated cinema recently brought me to 2007's The Bee Movie, a bee's eye view of the world which piqued my curiosity because I thought it might be Disney Pixar, but it turned out to be Dreamworks and I could definitely tell the difference, though Jerry Seinfeld being the creative force behind it did motivate me to give it a look. It's no Frozen or Monsters Inc, but it's watchable with an impressive all-star voice cast.
Seinfeld provides the voice for Barry B. Benson, a recent bee college graduate, not terribly thrilled about the well-worn bee tradition of making honey, who escapes the hive and defies bee law by befriending a human named Vanessa (voiced by Renee Zellweger) who leads Barry to the discovery that human beings have been storing and selling honey for years, which motivates Barry to sue the entire human race for profiting from the bee's livelihood, which expands into an even bigger story involving ecological principles and the common man VS big bad corporate America.
The sometimes overly cute screenplay by Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, and Andy Robin manages to incorporate every single play on words involving bees that they could think of and I found myself wishing they could have been a little more selective in the stories they are attempting to tell. It seemed like we were originally going to get a story of inter-species romance between Barry and Vanessa, but the story expands to the point where the film has at least two too many endings, though I was amused by Vanessa's boyfriend, Ken, being so jealous of her relationship with Barry.
As mentioned, Seinfeld has gathered some solid actors to voice his characters with standout work from John Goodman as a pompous attorney, Matthew Broderick as Barry's BFF Adam, Rip Torn as the pollen jockeys leader, and especially Patrick Warburton as Ken. The film goes on a little too long, but Seinfeld's reputation in this business and his fantastic voice cast do make the film a curio, to say the least.
My recent journey through the world of animated cinema recently brought me to 2007's The Bee Movie, a bee's eye view of the world which piqued my curiosity because I thought it might be Disney Pixar, but it turned out to be Dreamworks and I could definitely tell the difference, though Jerry Seinfeld being the creative force behind it did motivate me to give it a look. It's no Frozen or Monsters Inc, but it's watchable with an impressive all-star voice cast.
Seinfeld provides the voice for Barry B. Benson, a recent bee college graduate, not terribly thrilled about the well-worn bee tradition of making honey, who escapes the hive and defies bee law by befriending a human named Vanessa (voiced by Renee Zellweger) who leads Barry to the discovery that human beings have been storing and selling honey for years, which motivates Barry to sue the entire human race for profiting from the bee's livelihood, which expands into an even bigger story involving ecological principles and the common man VS big bad corporate America.
The sometimes overly cute screenplay by Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, and Andy Robin manages to incorporate every single play on words involving bees that they could think of and I found myself wishing they could have been a little more selective in the stories they are attempting to tell. It seemed like we were originally going to get a story of inter-species romance between Barry and Vanessa, but the story expands to the point where the film has at least two too many endings, though I was amused by Vanessa's boyfriend, Ken, being so jealous of her relationship with Barry.
As mentioned, Seinfeld has gathered some solid actors to voice his characters with standout work from John Goodman as a pompous attorney, Matthew Broderick as Barry's BFF Adam, Rip Torn as the pollen jockeys leader, and especially Patrick Warburton as Ken. The film goes on a little too long, but Seinfeld's reputation in this business and his fantastic voice cast do make the film a curio, to say the least.