Bee-ing Human
"Bee Movie" is a lot of fun with an array of visual gags, clever jokes about bees and all the typical sort of elements which you expect to find from an animation. But "Bee Movie" is also a movie with one huge problem; it looks like a young children's movie with its cute bees but the level of humour is more at the level of grown ups. I don't mean that it is full of sexual innuendo but gags that only a socially aware adult will get. Basically some very good jokes are used in the wrong movie which will probably amuse adults more than the children who they are watching it with.
Having done 3 days of school Barry B. Benson and best friend Adam Flaymanare are graduating and being transitioned into the work force. But Barry is less than impressed when he is told he will be in a job for life and wonders what's outside the hive as he sees the pollen jocks return from their forays in the outside world. When Barry heads out he becomes the unlikely friend of florist Vanessa Bloome and is horrified to discover that humans eat the honey they produce. Incensed by what he sees as theft Barry sets out to sue humans for stealing honey.
You can sum up "Bee Movie" by really reeling off the jokes. Now there are those jokes which are simply visual such as when Barry almost gets swallowed by a human which works at any age. But then you get a joke about bees graduating school and ending up in the workforce in a job for life which unless you are aware about the life of bees then the joke doesn't really work. It is the same with such jokes as the work place being owned by the Hexagon Group, it's a clever gag which only works if you know about the inside of a bee hive. It's a shame because as a grown up I found "Bee Movie" a lot of fun and the whole concept of Barry planning to sue humans for stealing honey is amusing but if it wasn't for the fact I will watch a movie just for being a movie I probably wouldn't have watched it.
Of course there is the other side to "Bee Movie" which is the animation and the characters. Now the animation is good but it doesn't really blow you away and to be honest whilst we have a whole array of characters from Pollen Jocks to desk clerks none of them are amazing. But we do have a whole array of recognizable voices which again unless you are aware of actors you probably won't pick up on it being Matthew Broderick as Adam or Kathy Bates as Barry's mum.
What this all boils down to is that "Bee Movie" is a lot of fun but more fun for grown ups rather than children. But that is a problem because visually "Bee Movie" looks like a children's movie rather than something for grown-ups.
