Robert King
Staff Writer
This fall, the 2007 animated comedy “Bee Movie” turns ten years old.
The movie begins: “According to all known laws of aviation, there’s no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway – because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.”
Jerry Seinfeld stars in the “Bee Movie” as Barry B. Benson, a bee who just graduated from college and is about to enter the workforce within his hive.
The only problem is that he can pick only one job, which he will do for the rest of his life.
Barry is the only bee who questions the ways of life in the hive.
He starts off breaking the rules of the hive by flying outside of it with the Pollen Jocks, who collect and spread the pollen on the flowers.
He ends up getting lost in Manhattan and finds Vanessa, voiced by Renée Zellweger.
Barry soon discovers that humans enslave bees to profit from honey.
He sees it as a violation of bees rights, which leads him to sue the entire human race.
Over the years, “Bee Movie” has been circulating in memes and jokes on Tumblr and the rest of the Internet.
In June 2016, a man captured a bee and made it watch “Bee Movie,” but the bee never gave its opinion.
A YouTube video that speeds the film up every time a character says “bee” has been viewed over 16 million times as of February 2017.
A movie that many people probably once thought would fade into oblivion has become a cult phenomenon mostly because the internet memes keep it alive and buzzing much longer than the life of a typical honey bee.
The movie often pokes fun at the real world by telling the story through the bee’s perspective.
Sting from The Police is offensive to bees because of his stage name. Larry King has his own doppelgänger in the bee world. It is not every day that you see Pooh Bear tranquilized simply for eating honey.
“Bee Movie” did not live up to its expectations.
It is filled with many pop culture jabs and innuendos that flew over the heads of the children it was intended for.
Since those kids are ten years older, they may enjoy the movie on an adult level.
It does not rise above other titles from DreamWorks Animation; instead, it follows “Shrek” and “Madagascar” to the shadows behind the Disney Pixar movies.
Directed by Steve Hickner and Simon J. Smith, “Bee Movie” features the voices of Seinfeld, Zellweger, Chris Rock and John Goodman.
IMDb ratings give the film a 6.2/10 while Rotten Tomatoes gives it 51% and an audience score of 53%.
It is important to be reminded how vital bees are to the balance of nature, which “Bee Movie” addresses quite well. However, this movie fails to mention how bees are facing extinction at alarming rates.
The only side effects from the absence of bees portrayed in the film is Central Park completely dead and the last Tournament of Roses parade.
For a kid’s movie, it doesn’t show the near-apocalyptic mayhem that would ensue with the sudden loss of plant life. Also, pollination does not occur as fast as the ending of the movie portrays.
A dying bee population affects mankind at the highest levels of the food chain, posing a great threat to human survival.
No other animal species has such a role in producing the fruits and vegetables that we take for granted yet require to stay alive.
In this way, “Bee Movie,” despite its age, still portrays a relevant message.