Bee Bashing and Other Bits o' Honey

Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie is getting bashed, almost unanimously -- and rightly so: It's one of the most lackluster animated flicks to foist itself on young audiences in a long while. See my below post for more thoughts about the movie.

The film received a score of 5.4 (out of 10) at metacritic.

Joe Morgenstern, in his Wall Street Journal review, writes, " 'Bee Movie' isn't a B movie. It's a Z movie, as in dizmal." And, later, "This is Hollywood hackery."

Claudia Puig, writing in USA Today, says "It's so unfunny it stings," while Washington Post critic Desson Thomson, laments, "The more the movie progresses, the more you realize how much Seinfeld's voice sounds like a droning bee -- the kind you want to swat away."

Meanwhile, the usually reliable Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman inexplicably gives the movie an A-, waxing poetic about how Bee Movie is "a fairy tale about the inspiring glory of punching the clock."

Huh? Guess who's been chugging Dream Works' Bee pollen?

Interesting to note various critics' views on what the giant hive reminds them of -- comparisons have been made to "The Jetsons," Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," and "somewhere between Richard Scarry and Rube Goldberg" (Morgenstern).

To think, Seinfeld spent four years of his life making Bee Movie fly.

Guess that inundation advertising paid off, though: The film grabbed $39.1 million at the box office over the weekend. Not a bad haul.

Here's the AP item ...

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- A heroin pusher and a honey bee put some sting back into the movie business.

Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe's bloody crime saga "American Gangster" took in $46.3 million to lead the weekend box office, with Jerry Seinfeld's family cartoon "Bee Movie" following with $39.1 million. Together, the movies revitalized Hollywood's listless autumn.

"It took three of the biggest stars in the world to get the box office back on track, and they did it in high style with two totally different kinds of movies," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.