Bee Movie

This is probably the first time I've watched an animated film for its voice cast. Headlined by Jerry Seinfeld, who also wrote the screenplay and produced the film, Bee Movie is the comedian's first work since he left television after his hugely successful sitcom Seinfeld. The family-friendly, animated flick provides little opportunity for his brand of humor though. As just another animated film, it is visually attractive and has a few laughs but doesn't rise to the level of recent animated films by Pixar.

Animated movies are primarily aimed at kids with a few jokes thrown in to make sure the adults aren't bored. But Bee Movie seems at primarily at adults! Its storyline, jokes, moral all seem targeted more at adults. The central concept of a bee suing the human race for the sake of honey seems a little too high-concept for an animated film and I had a tough time explaining the concept of suing to Kavya! And though I wasn't rolling on the floor with laughter, I definitely laughed more than her!

The yellow and black of the bees lends itself to some bright and colorful animation. And when even ogres and rats can be made to look cute, its no problem making bees look cute. So the movie has enough to keep us engaged visually. But it is too talky. A couple of sequences like the bees' pollination trip and a human's attempt to whack a bee are the only 'action' sequences and the film could have used a few more. There are some visual gags(mostly from the usual technique of mapping the bees' lives to ours) and funny one-liners(Chris Rock's mosquite has the best one near the end of the film) scattered throughout the film but not enough to feel as if the film is consistently clever or funny.

Seinfeld definitely isn't the master of the animated domain...