Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
11/3/07
Ever get that feeling that
the “messages” in animated movies just get shoved in there by people who
don't believe them for a second because they know that parents are going
to feel better about the product if it “teaches” their kids something?
If so, you'll be better prepared for the bizarre experience that is Bee
Movie, Dreamworks' Jerry Seinfeld vehicle that stands both for and
against every last thing it can think of. Be an individual, just
as long as you're a cog in a machine. Don't exploit minorities, unless
that exploitation is part of the fabric of society. Do whatever you
can to save the environment, but don't learn from your mistakes.
Everyone should find a message to like in Bee Movie's shambling
narrative because it takes every possible point of view and treats it as
the movie's theme... for a few minutes. All of which would be easier
to take if so much of its' humor weren't on the level of the movie poster
that proudly proclaims “Honey Just Got Funny.” Ugh.
In a hive that, in familiar
Pixar/PDI fashion is exactly like human society, bees Barry (Seinfeld)
and Adam (Matthew Broderick) have just completed their three days of college
and are ready to take their place in the honey-making business that consumes
all of their time. Bees get to choose a career (unless it's pollen-gathering,
for which you must be bred), but once they've made that choice, they're
stuck with it for life. Adam is thrilled to only ever have to make
one choice, but Barry worries about being trapped. He yearns to leave
the hive and see the outside world, and gets his chance when a series of
plot contrivances sends him out on a mission with those specially bred
Pollen Jocks. But he's separated from the group and ends up in the
home of flower shop owner Vanessa Bloome (Renee Zellweger). She saves
him from swatting by her oafish boyfriend Ken (Patrick Warburton, so you
know he's REALLY oafish), and Barry feels compelled to express his thanks.
You see, bees CAN talk, they just have laws against doing it in the presence
of people. He breaks that law, leading to a peculiar friendship/romance
that in turn leads to his discovery that human grocery stores are filled
with honey: honey “stolen” from bees. Barry decides to sue,
and the resulting trial pits him against Big Honey's ruthless lawyer Layton
T. Montgomery (John Goodman). Barry's heart is in the right place,
but has he really thought of what a world without the honey-making process
will be like?
I know Bee Movie hasn't,
and as it rolls into its' cheerfully apocalyptic third act, its' pages
seem to be pulled at random from a series of contradictory screenplays,
each with a different idea of what kind of environmental parable the story
is supposed to be. Certainly at a time when bees are mysteriously
disappearing in alarming numbers, it's a good idea to stimulate kids' thoughts
about how all the parts of the ecosystem work together. But once
you've already established that the Hive is exactly like the most soul-sucking
parts of the human workplace, it's tough to turn around and say “Sorry,
pick up that broom and get sweeping for the rest of your life, the world
needs that trash picked up”. Doubly so when the messenger makes sixty
million dollars a year on residuals from his TV show, and HIS bee doesn't
have to do any of the unsavory jobs. The movie spends an awful lot
of time on the trial without ever seeming to even know what legal issues
are being debated, going from the theft of honey and the horrors of bee
keeping to complaints about the stage name of Sting (man, that scene HURTS)
and the glorification of bears. It's kinda like “black people” suing
“white people” over racism, only without scoring a single satirical point.
Not that it's atypical for
an animated anthropomorfest like this, but the movie also has some strange
ideas about the physical stamina of the average bee. Most insects
can barely be blown on without dying moments later, but the Bee Movie
creatures
can survive just about anything (including stinging someone, even after
the plot has made a point of how fatal that is for them), and also posses
unnatural strength (no one told the writers that's ants... although the
setup is lifted so directly from Antz that the confusion is easy
to understand).
None of this would matter
so much if the movie were funnier, but most of the jokes just lay there.
Jerry Seinfeld's school of humor doesn't prove to be a good fit with this
kind of format. Granted, there are some highlights, particularly
a hilariously self-mocking cameo by Ray Liotta, who's lended his name to
the honey brand Ray Liotta's Private Select, and turns up in court as a
twitchy, Emmy-clutching maniac. Barry's visit to a sadisticly lame
honey farm is also a hoot. But more often, we get scenes like one
where Barry is interviewed on Bee television by an insect named Bee Larry
King (King himself, of course). There's a little “so stupid it's
funny” SNL kick to the gag, until Barry feels the need to point
out “You know, the humans have a Larry King too...” and then goes on to
beat the joke to death for what seems like an hour (come to think of it,
it's EXACTLY like SNL). None of the voice actors does much
to elevate the material, and there's nothing worse than giving Warburton
a bad part, because he'll punch it, kick it, shoot it in the gut and then
do CPR on it trying to juice SOME kind of laughs out of sheer force of
will.
All this said, Bee Movie
isn't painful to watch: like most bad animation, it's got pretty
colors, moves fast and isn't mean enough to take too seriously. But
the animation is a notch below what we've come to expect from this sort
of fare, with its' simplistic designs and relatively few realistic attributes
(the fuzz on the bees isn't bad, but it's nothing compared to what you'd
expect if Pixar was doing the animation). There are enough funny
lines that I didn't give up on the idea that more were coming, but also
enough groaners that I spent long stretches without laughing.
The fall movie season was
jam-packed with hard-hitting drama and dark subject matter, but Bee
Movie isn't the film to lift that cloud for the holidays. It's
stilted, confused, and not nearly as good as those live-action trailers
we saw back in the spring. And like those fall dramas, it also seeks
to provide ample food for thought. Unfortunately, those thoughts
prove to be of the “What the Hell was that?” variety. |
