Bee Movie...gives me a buzz...

I meant to write this a bit earlier since I saw this movie late last year but I had the time to watch it again and as the first time I saw it I realized again how much Bee Movie is a clever piece of first-rate entertainment. Though it doesn’t have quite the quality of some of Disney’s Pixar movies, it has plenty of glorious, colorful animation, exhilarating action, and a great story full of fresh, funny characters we haven’t seen before. There is plenty of comedy and action for children and teenagers, and there is also plenty of sharp wit for mature audiences, including parents and grandparents who want to share a day at the movies with their older children and grandchildren or watch it together on the small screen.

Bee Movie has several positive messages. Barry’s parents have taught him that, when someone does something for you, you have to thank him. That’s what drives Barry to thank Vanessa for saving his life. Though Barry has a Romantic worldview (he wants to fulfill his personal wishes), he eventually recognizes that there are limits to those desires. In the end, he discovers there is a created balance to life in which the bees, the humans, and every living thing play an important role. Thus, at the climax of the movie, Barry realizes that, though he has his own individuality, he is part of a species that has an important job to fulfill, a job that can only be accomplished by working together. In fact, it can be said that both the bees and the humans come to realize not only that every living thing plays an important role but also that, as Vanessa puts it early in the movie, “Every life has value.”

The content of Bee Movie is fairly unspoiled and pleasant. There is no foul language, graphic violence, or crude sexual comedy. There is even a reference to the “sweet Lord of bees” and a nod to Christianity when one character makes the sign of the cross. Rent it out and enjoy it because even if the title sound daft and the cover is even worse, it is a movie that you don’t mind watching again and again because it is an animated film that makes both the kids and the big kids laugh. The more I see of ‘Bee Movie’, the more it seems that this could be another one of those animated gems