Movie · 2007 · Family, Animation, Adventure, Comedy · 1h 31m · PG · English
Curator score: 1.8/10 (922.9K ratings)
Honey just got funny.
Overview
Barry B. Benson, a recent college graduate who wants more out of his life than making honey, decides to sue the human race after learning about the exploitation of bees at the hands of mankind. What will happen next?
Ratings
Curator score: 1.8/10
IMDb: 6.1/10
Letterboxd: 2.98/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 49%
Metacritic: 54
TMDB: 6.0/10
Director
Simon J. Smith, Steve Hickner
Production
Columbus 81 Productions, DreamWorks Animation
Cast
Jerry Seinfeld, Renée Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, Chris Rock, Kathy Bates, Barry Levinson, Larry King, Ray Liotta, Sting, Oprah Winfrey, Larry Miller, Megan Mullally, Rip Torn, Michael Richards, Mario Joyner, Jim Cummings, Tom Papa, Andy Robin
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A manic, joke-dense animated comedy with a genuinely bizarre premise and a lot of meme fuel, but also a thin story and uneven pacing. It’s more interesting as a cultural artifact and a stream of punchlines than as a fully satisfying family film.
Best for
Viewers who like surreal, high-concept studio comedies
People who enjoy memeable dialogue and absurdist one-liners
Families okay with a weird, offbeat animated movie
Fans of celebrity-voiced animation with a satirical edge
Skip if
You want a tightly plotted or emotionally rich animated adventure
You’re allergic to broad, pun-heavy comedy
You prefer children’s films that stay tonally consistent
You need a movie that works better as a story than as a joke machine
Overview
Bee Movie is less a conventional family adventure than a fever dream of corporate-era studio comedy. It takes a premise that should be silly for five minutes and stretches it into a full legal satire, romance, and workplace absurdity, with the kind of deadpan delivery that makes the strangest lines land harder than they should.
Worth noting
What keeps it alive is its commitment to the bit. The movie is packed with odd visual choices, weirdly specific jokes, and a relentless willingness to escalate from cute anthropomorphic setup into full-blown nonsense. That makes it feel less polished than Pixar or DreamWorks at their peak, but also more singular than many cleaner, safer animated films.
Bottom line
As a story, it’s uneven and often feels like it’s improvising its way forward. But as a pop-culture object, it’s durable: part kids’ movie, part satire, part accidental cult classic. If you’re in the mood for something that is genuinely strange rather than merely family-friendly, it has a lot of charm in its chaos.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Mike (5★) · 10822 likes
Do 👏 not 👏 call 👏 your 👏 significant 👏 other 👏 honey 👏 unless 👏 you 👏 are 👏 a 👏 bee 👏 you 👏 are 👏 appropriating 👏 bee 👏 culture, 👏 this 👏 cannot 👏 bee 👏 accepted 👏
James (Schaffrillas) (3.5★) · 8650 likes
A shitpost disguised as a film
aliyah · 7037 likes
my top ten favourite moments ranked by how often i think about them on a daily basis:
10. when vanessa asks her boyfriend why a bee’s life has less value than his9. ‘are you her little......... bed bug?’8. the suicide pact wherein barry dies twice and the fact that such a scene was allowed to be included in a children’s film7. barry knocking himself out giving vanessa a high five6. ‘living out our lives as honey… more
sophie (5★) · 4720 likes
all the male bees have buzz cuts and all the female bees have beehives