Bee Movie: Buzz worthy

In the non-Pixar animation world, animated films can go in two directions: They can fail miserably (Robots) or they can become massive successes (Shrek).

Bee Movie is sure to be the latter. It is a triumph of animation, directing and writing. In just under 90 minutes, the film crams in enough plot shifts and jokes to power five other animated films.

Forget the hype, the publicity stunts and the product tie-ins. Bee Movie stands on its own as a rare example of quality family filmmaking.

The film is co-written and produced by Jerry Seinfeld, who also stars as Barry B. Benson, a honeybee fed up with his lot in life. And who can blame him? He is cheerfully informed that all he has to look forward to is a short life of subservient, backbreaking labor and constant fear of bear attacks. Such is the life story of the more than 100 million-year-old species of bees.

Barry dreams of breaking away from the life that evolution handed him and leaving the hive to explore the outside world. After joining the Air Force-like pollination team, he does just that. What he eventually finds is shocking to his bee sensibilities. Barry witnesses forced-bee-labor camps, where countless bees are assaulted with smoke guns by sadistic beekeepers so the honey industry can reap the benefits.

This is where the film takes an unexpected turn. Barry manages to make contact with humans (both species speak English) and proceeds to sue the human race for exploiting bees and stealing the honey they work their whole lives to produce. From that point on, the bees have unlimited honey, stop pollinating flowers, and in the process, break down the natural order of life.

Don’t mistake this film as merely a kid’s movie. There are the usual trappings, like poo-poo humor (thankfully this film only has one poop joke, and it’s actually funny), but if you can get over the fact that you are watching a family film, you’ll find enough Seinfeld-ish observational humor and thrilling visuals to keep you highly entertained.

One remarkable sequence has Barry stuck to a tennis ball (he mistakes it for a flower…bees sure are stupid) and sent flying around in a tennis match, out into New York traffic, and inside a car, finally landing smack dab on a semi-truck’s windshield. This entire sequence is shot almost entirely from the point of view of the bee, and the animation never falters. The fast-moving bee-flying scenes are as exciting as any of the web-swinging sequences in Spider-Man.

Modern animated films are almost always full of celebrity cameos and pop-culture references, but Bee Movie has some of the most random ones. In the bee world, there is not only a Bee-Larry King, but also a Bee-Gandhi, a Bee-Columbus and a Bee-Jesus. Ray Liotta even appears in one of the year’s strangest cameos, playing himself as a honey-making, violent sociopath.

And if you have ever harbored a deep hatred for Winnie the Pooh, you will rejoice when that greedy honey hoarder gets what’s coming to him.

So is there enough humor and entertainment in this movie for a college student with no kids to go see it? Yes. It might feel strange watching a movie while surrounded by kids, but you are bound to end up laughing right alongside them.

Jerry Seinfeld on Bee Movie

Although Jerry Seinfeld has been in the stand-up comedy field for 30 years, and co-created and starred in one of the greatest television shows of all time, when it came to making Bee Movie, he still had a lot to learn.

“It was probably like your first day at school,” Seinfeld said in a recent conference call. “It wasn’t a transition for me in terms of the comedy. It was more learning the comedy and how that works and learning to speak the language of animation and having people explain to you how these movies are made.”

In the years it took to create Bee Movie, which opens today, Seinfeld had to learn to meld his brand of comedy (“Don’t you hate it when…” or “What’s the deal with…”) into a family-orientated animated feature film. He thinks it worked well.

“We’ve played it for little kids and we’ve played it for adults…and everyone seems to find it funny. I’m very happy. I feel that this movie is a very good companion to the work we did in Seinfeld. If you like comedy, you will be able to relate to it.”

After years of hard work co-writing, producing and starring in Bee Movie, would Seinfeld go through it all again? He said he couldn’t begin to answer that question until the movie is finally released.

“As a comedian, I don’t think I’m done until I hear the audience reaction.”