Entertainment Weekly
"BEE MOVIE is agreeably skewed fun....The images have a spangly clarity -- they make New York look new again..." -- Grade: A- 11/09/2007 p.79Empire
3 stars out of 5 -- "There are child-friendly puns, but it's also crammed with Seinfeld's trademark observational humour." 01/01/2008 p.58 Sight and Sound
"At its heart is a sweet moral message about everyone pulling together, about doing even the smallest job to the best of your ability..." 01/01/2008 p.60 Ultimate DVD
4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] magnificently entertaining adventure....With a host of subtle jokes, references and cameos..." 05/01/2008 p.85 ReelViews 7 of 10
The press notes for Bee Movie indicate that Jerry Seinfeld came up with the title before he had an inkling what the story might be. Having seen the film, I can believe that...It's a little weird and a little subversive, but mostly it's just dull. Moreover, while adults may get something out of Bee Movie, it's hard to understand what it has to offer to kids besides the flashy animation and a couple of video game-inspired sequences. On the whole, this is another disappointing animated effort and it resides considerably lower on the totem pole than this year's current non-live action champion, Ratatouille...It's fair to argue that Bee Movie ventures onto a road less taken. Certainly, I can't think of another movie in which a talking insect has dragged the entire human race before a judge whose voice is provided by Oprah Winfrey. Nevertheless, while there's something to be prized about uniqueness in a motion picture, that quality is only an asset when it enhances the overall entertainment value - something not evident here...While it has value as a passable diversion, this is ultimately yet another disappointing animated feature in an every-widening pool of them. At least this time it appears that the cause is an offbeat sensibility rather than the laziness and greed that have characterized so many others. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 6 of 10
All of this material, written by Seinfeld and writers associated with his television series, tries hard, but never really takes off. We learn at the outset of the movie that bees theoretically cannot fly. Unfortunately, in the movie, that applies only to the screenplay. It is really, really, really hard to care much about a platonic romantic relationship between Renee Zellweger and a bee, although if anyone could pull if off, she could...Barry and Adam come across as earnest, articulate young bees who pursue logic into the realm of the bizarre, as sometimes happened on the "Seinfeld" show. Most of the humor is verbal, and tends toward the gently ironic rather than the hilarious. Chris Rock scores best, as a mosquito named Mooseblood, but his biggest laugh comes from a recycled lawyer joke...In the tradition of many recent animated films, several famous people turn up playing themselves, including Sting (how did he earn that name?) and Ray Liotta, who is called as a witness because his brand of Ray Liotta Honey profiteers from the labors of bees...Liotta's character and voice work are actually kind of inspired, leaving me to regret the absence of B.B. King, Burt's Bees, Johnny B. Goode, and the evil Canadian bee slavemaster Norman Jewison, who -- oh, I forgot, he exploits maple trees. - Roger Ebert
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