Bee Movie

Relentlessly uneven yet basically entertaining, Bee Movie revolves around Barry B. Benson (voiced by Jerry Seinfeld) – a plucky young bee who is horrified to learn that humans are selling honey during his first trip away from home. The film, written by Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, and Andy Robin, generally comes off as an amiable effort that benefits substantially from the almost uniformly stellar voice work, with Seinfeld, Matthew Broderick, and especially Patrick Warburton effectively breathing life into their thinly-drawn characters (Renee Zellweger, who offers up a shrill and egregiously broad turn as a sympathetic human, proves to be the one weak spot within the cast). And while there are a number of genuinely funny interludes peppered throughout the proceedings, the distinctly erratic structure employed by Seinfeld and company does become increasingly difficult to overlook as the movie progresses – with the mind-numbingly frenetic third act essentially ensuring that the film peters out long before the end credits start to roll. The bright and vibrant animation – which is also surprisingly jerky, admittedly – tends to smooth over Bee Movie‘s more prominent deficiencies, however, and it ultimately seems fairly obvious that younger viewers will find plenty here worth embracing (ie a Pixar flick this is not).

**1/2 out of ****