The Bee Movie - A Review

Don't believe the buzz (sorry about that) - it's okay but not great. My wife is a big Seinfeld fan so she couldn't wait for Jerry Seinfeld's animated Bee Movie to come out. They've been running lengthy ads on NBC programs for three weeks and I'm sure they're expecting a big return on investment. They may have a good first weekend, but I don't think the word-of-mouth will be all that great.

We saw it at an early show this afternoon in a theater that was maybe 30% full and most of those were kids. For small kids the movie will probably be entertaining, but for adults it feels longer than its 84 minutes.

There are a few good lines and some Seinfeld-type humor, and they even tried to get in a Halliburton and Enron reference, though that went right by most of the audience since the vast majority were under 10. At least they didn't try and make it antiwar flick or global warming or environwacko picture - "An Inconvenient Hive", or something like that.

Unfortunately, Jerry Seinfeld isn't any better of a voice actor than he was a sitcom actor, but since that's what Seinfeld fans are used to it's no big deal. There were a number of other familiar voices including Putty (Patrick Warburton), Renee Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, Chris Rock, John Goodman, Oprah Winfrey and Rip Torn.

If you have little kids, take them and they'll probably enjoy it. It might get a little long for the grownups that are trying to keep the kids from climbing the walls.