Bee Movie: Critic Reviews

The film is nutty, ecological, antically funny, and moving, all at the same time.

The most genuinely apian aspect of Bee Movie is that it spends a lot of its running time buzzing happily around, sniffing out fresh jokes wherever they may bloom.

What a treat to see a comedy that starts funny, is funny in the middle, and ends funny - unlike the usual Hollywood model in which all the humour is used up in the first act setting up the premise, and then winds down into sentimentality.

Bee Movie is certainly not low-budget, but it has all the staying power and creative value of a B-movie. The secret life of bees, as told by Seinfeld, is a bore with a capital B.

Bee Movie feels phoned in on every level.

The vibe is loose-limbed and fluky, and the gags have an extra snap that's recognizably Seinfeldian. If I believed in a sitcom afterlife, I'd swear the whole thing was cooked up by Kramer and George's dad.

Rock has but two scenes in the film, but he needs a hundred more. Give the man his own movie, please, if only because it'd bee far better than this one.

Watching this pun-filled cartoon is like falling into a tray of children's watercolors -- the warm end, where oranges and yellows and ambers wave.

Bee Movie isn't a B movie, it's a Z movie, as in dizmal.

Is it as bold as it might be? Does it blaze with invention? Is it the best babbling-bee urban biopic, bar none? Just about.

The film's charm, quickness and design carry the day.

It's impersonal. It doesn't come from anywhere interesting.

All of this material, written by Seinfeld and writers associated with his television series, tries hard, but never really takes off.

It's on the easygoing level of Surf's Up, and a full tick up from, say, Over the Hedge or The Ant Bully. But given the Seinfeld pedigree it's something of a disappointment.

The whole thing's pretty cute and breezy.

It has enough buzzing wit and eye-popping animation to win over the kids -- and probably more than a few parents, too.

Absurd enough to delight kids, overstuffed with verbal and visual in-jokes for grownups, it's a 90-minute joyride that barely pauses for breath. This is unquestionably the best movie that ever began as a bad pun.

If it's not Toy Story, well, what is? But Bee Movie offers plenty of entertainment for all ages -- though, truth be told, the older the better.

It is mercifully less than 90 minutes long, but make that an hour and a half of witty, captivating enchantment.

Amiable but no more.

After Shrek the Third's flatulence jokes, the return of that Seinfeldian wit brings animation up a level.

An often-inspired smart comedy for kids, and a vintage Seinfeld laugh for adults.

Bee Movie is a cute movie. Not that there's anything ... well, you know the rest. But cute is not what adults expect from Jerry Seinfeld, although children will be delighted.

Another ground-breaking show about nothing -- a hornet's nest of hype for a fat hive of nothing.

Bee Movie just lacks spirit and energy. Part of the problem may be that, as far as I'm concerned, any animated movie released this year (and possibly in years to come) suffers in comparison with Brad Bird's Ratatouille.