Movie review: Seinfeld's 'Bee Movie' is a honey

"Bee Movie" gets an A+. Jerry Seinfeld's venture into the world of animated comedy successfully breaks new ground for him while reminding us why his sitcom was one of the funniest programs in TV history. Absurd enough to delight kids, overstuffed with verbal and visual in-jokes for grownups, it's a 90-minute joyride that barely pauses for breath. This is unquestionably the best movie that ever began as a bad pun.

The premise sounds as cloying as drinking honey from a jar: Seinfeld plays a bee who is curious about life outside the hive and falls in love with a human florist. Yet the setup hardly matters. Seinfeld is a master comedian who spent nine years on TV being funny about nothing.

The film riffs on the peculiarities of life in New Hive City at a manic pace. It's a lot like Los Angeles, a one-industry town with nonstop traffic, royalty at the top and armies of drones below, a hazy understanding of life in the real world beyond, and a fun-loving, mellow vibe.

Barry B. Benson (Seinfeld), after three days in grade school, three days in high school and three days in college, is about to enter the workforce, where he's surprised to learn he will perform a single specialized task for the rest of his life. Unsatisfied with options like pollen crud picker, nectar stirrer and swat-helmet tester, he ventures out into New York City's Central Park with a squadron of "pollen jocks," the Top Guns of the apiary world.

The world he finds out there is full of tension (impact with a windshield, a tennis ball or a rolled-up magazine is a constant threat), but it has its pleasures, too. When a flower shop owner named Vanessa (Renée Zellweger) saves him from insect-icide, he breaks the bees' oath of silence and thanks her, launching a lovely inter-species romance. Hey, what's he supposed to do? Every female bee in the hive is his cousin.

The look of the movie is nifty, full of jokey details that don't detract from the overall beauty of its bee and human worlds. Its hive is a retro-futuristic theme park and its New York looks both dangerous and vibrant; you can see why Barry would fall in love with the place. The editing has a jubilant precision, with no dead spots between zingers. The energy level is high, but not assaultive. It comes close to doing with images what Seinfeld does with words.

Conflict enters the story when Barry discovers that humans are skimming the bees' honey and takes the human race to court. The outcome is a surprise that generates a hornet's nest of crises for Barry and Vanessa. Bees and humans are now at odds, but only through unprecedented cooperation can they save the day.

The resolution is beautifully worked out, giving us a climax that is clever, satirical, emotionally gratifying and a logical extension of bee lore. That's true of scene after scene; almost every joke is intelligent and carefully engineered into the movie's themes. Its moments of childlike mischief and adult wit work together harmoniously: There's a great toss-off gag with Disney's Winnie the Pooh as a lowdown dirty honey thief. I counted just three clunkers in 90 minutes. The crud pickers worked over this one very carefully.

Colin Covert • 612-673-7186

Colin Covertrating: Pg For Mild Suggestive humor. • ccovert@startribune.com