Bee Movie A Blu-ray review by James Harper
Before I jump off into Dreamworks' Bee Movie, please permit me to talk about some of the audio formats of the past for a moment. I was just listening to a SACD (Super Audio CD) of the London Symphony Orchestra performing Mahler's First Symphony, and it sounds great (and right before that was listening to a reel-to-reel of Judy Collins "In My Life" that also sounds spectacular, like it was recorded yesterday, though not all reel-to-reels sound this good). SACD was a nice format, which is no longer being backed up by Sony which was one of the companies that developed it (please hand me a tissue). It was a nice fun format. I am always surprised at how many people don't even know what a SACD is. It plays in surround sound, and it is easy to use. There are still classical music SACDs coming out, but for the most part the SACD format in the United States is dead.
The newest movie format, Blu-ray, was introduced by Sony in 2003, and the format is still in a state of flux somewhat. If you are thinking about buying a Blu-ray player you may want to check out the compatibility of your amplifier and the Blu-Ray player. Not all amplifiers can decode all the audio formats on a Blu-ray disc (keep an eye out for the ability to decode Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio in the player and/or amplifier, some players cannot decode these formats but can pass the digital signal to the amplifier to decode, depending on the specific amp you have). Blu-Ray discs can hold up to 50 GB, which is a lot more than a DVD can hold. Because of this extra storage capacity the Blu-ray can contain much more audio and video information. If you have a PlayStation 3then you already have a Blu-ray player, though I think there are some limitations to the way the PlayStation 3 can process the audio from a Blu-ray disc. Blu-ray seems to be off to a good start since HD DVD, the other high-definition movie format, has already dropped off the map recently. Blu-ray discs are expensive with many single discs running for thirty dollars (though you can find pretty good prices on Blu-ray discs at Amazon). If you ask me if the improvements of the Blu-ray disc are worth twice the price of a DVD disc, I would tend to say no, so in the long run the price of the software may be a factor in the overall success of Blu-ray. I think people are willing to pay a premium for improved sound and video, but I am not sure the general public is willing to pay such a huge premium. The Blu-ray format has a lot of potential for surround sound music, as well as a class act movie format, and with SACD gone and DVD-A (and not even mentioning Dual-Discs) also gone by the wayside, there is room for a good music format that improves on the lonely little CD, though Blu-ray hasn't really been used in this way yet, though I think there is at least one company that is releasing audio only classical recordings on Blu-ray in high definition sound.
I liked Bee Movie a lot. This is Jerry Seinfeld's baby all the way, so if you like Jerry Seinfeld, as I do, then you will like probably this movie. It even feels like a "Seinfeld" episode transferred over to the bee world, and this is not a negative. The "Seinfeld" series may not have had a huge range of colors it was working with, but it was always damn funny. Bee Movie is not a dramatic movie. In Bee Movie there are stabs at every little bit of bee trivia out there and even sneaks in a big reference to the pool sequence in The Graduate (I just kept waiting for someone to whisper the word plastics). The movie is packed from one end to the other with sharp little jokes, even down to the signs and background comments scattered around the movie. You would have to watch the movie twice just to catch all the little in-jokes buried here and there.
 The plot in fact is nothing more than something to hang the jokes on. The movie is written well enough that it can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike, though some of the jokes obviously will fly over some of the younger kid's heads. The movie was not just slapped together. Bee Movie doesn't have the emotional impact of Dumbo (what does?), but as a way to spend some time you could do a lot worse. Bee Movie is light as air but works well. The script was written with care and the whole movie seems to have been very well thought out. Chris Rock, as a mosquito, is hysterical. The Blu-ray picture looks wonderful, and though there isn't a lot of surround sound stuff going on in the movie (in fact underused in my opinion, please pass another tissue), the sound mix is very well done and the dialogue is crystal clear. There are a lot of extras, my favorite being "Jerry's NBeeC TV Juniours", which are just short little programs about aspects of the film with the Seinfeld touch that definitely lean towards the absurd. This little extra is as funny as anything in Bee Movie, and if you track down a copy of Bee Movie on DVD or Blu-ray be sure and don't skip this extra. There is also a section on alternative endings which is not a collection of endings that were actually shot, but instead are storyboards and limited animation of the different endings, with a narrative by Seinfeld to explain what we are seeing. It shows the different endings that were considered, and why they were rejected, which actually gives a pretty good feel into how the movie was put together. The audio of the Blu-ray disc is in 5.1 Dolby TrueHD as well as Dolby Digital. Were there any Romper Room quotes in there anywhere?
You can write to James Harper at movielover77061@yahoo.com |
