{moszoomthumb imgid=306 itemid=74 style_m=2}rated PG 

To effectively describe a journey from arrogance to altruism, it’s important to first establish the arrogance. Enter Jerry Seinfeld, stage left. Having virtually disappeared from the public eye when he closed production of his enormously popular TV series in 1998, he’s contentedly relaxed back into his chair of syndication money and returned to the boards of personally delivered stage comedy. Describing himself with some empty modesty as “just a standup comic,” his decision after nearly a decade of semi-retirement to take the reigns as writer, producer, and star of DreamWorks’ new animated bug movie has proven a spectacular showcase of what Seinfeld isn’t good at.

For one, Seinfeld has never really been known as a people person. He’s a critic of human nature, preying—in the funniest possible way—on the folly and contrivance he sees all around him. A professional antagonist might seem a fairly misguided first choice for a role as the story’s “glass-half-full guy.”

Where his boyish affability once buoyed his often whiney observations, as he gets older and puffier, the jade seems to be visibly eroding the joy. Taking a shot at making a kids’ movie about a reckless youth discovering a world of opportunity might even seem a subconscious attempt on Jerry’s part to recapture a dab of his waning positivism. But, even with all the upbeat “bee yourself” posturing we’ve come to expect from a DreamWorks joint, his bee version of himself, B. Barry Benson, never quite pulls free from the gravity of this professionally developed detachment. A poisonous cynicism persists in the character from beginning to end, resulting in a conspicuous lack of connection or delight in the process for everybody involved. As Barry discovers that the human honey industry is exploiting and enslaving his countless cousins, his first reaction is to sue the human race. There’s something a little off-putting about a kids’ matinee plot that flies from breathless possibility directly to litigation in one swoop. Way to slam on the fun brakes, Jerry.

Seinfeld also freely admits that he’s a joke master, not a storyteller. His comments on the human condition are often formed in the style of questions and are generally designed to last no more than three minutes each. He’s said that even the exercise of stretching his ideas into a 20-minute sitcom strained him beyond challenge.

Almost as an “I told ya so,” his “Bee Movie” screenplay bumbles around from quote to quote, more like a shoebox of rustling post-it notes than a studio feature film script. Conversations between characters seem decidedly phoned in and disengaged, situations and relationships hover about and drift off with a vacant, aimless quality that could best be described as, well, bee-ish. A last act theme shift into a Discovery Channel fueled message of environmental responsibility, as the consequence of Barry’s good legal intentions turns out to be total world deforestation in the absence of bee labor, feels particularly tacked on, as if Seinfeld’s team just couldn’t bear that their movie would probably have been better served by being half an hour shorter.

Another surprising shortcoming shows through with Seinfeld’s dispiritingly threadbare creative imagination. Using the medium of computer animation, he was handed a blank slate on which to create an entire new landscape, a whole new world for audiences to explore. As technically proficient as DreamWorks’ animating drones are, there’s little to be done when the boss’s vision merely begins at Disneyland and ends in New York. Although presented in a colorful and frenetic format, the hive environment Seinfeld establishes is no more than a cheerfully crowded, if well groomed, amusement park ride, and Barry’s big escape simply leads him back to the familiar streets of Jerry’s beloved, overworked Big Apple.

Unfortunately, the greatest of Seinfeld’s talents to surface through the launch of this film may be his skill as a consummate media manipulator. Selling the project as his “big return,” he’s slid smartly to the controls of the movie’s marketing machine, imposing himself onto any and every possible media outlet. You can hear the echoes of the meeting where somebody was surely tickled by the idea of creating “buzz” about the bee movie. Much more engaging than the movie itself, Seinfeld’s initial trailers for the film featured him shuffling around in a big fuzzy bee suit, literally putting his face on the movie. Simultaneously wry and ridiculous, he should have considered stopping there.

As game a marketing monkey wrench as he’s proven, however, the ubiquity of Seinfeld’s presence has had the unfortunate side effect of simply reinforcing his egotism and reminding us 100 times that he made this movie for his own reasons, on his own terms, in his own voice and with little apparent concern for whether it might be fun for anyone else.

Too oblique and disjointed to appeal to kids (the inclusion of Ray Liotta, as himself, as comic fodder in a kids’ movie continues to perplex), and not bold or sophisticated enough to satisfy adults (same example again—err, Ray Liotta?), “Bee Movie” may have some buzz, but it stings in all the wrong ways.