Directors: Steve Hickner, Simon J Smith
Running time: 87 minutes
****
Jerry Seinfield lends his writer's pen and comedic voice to this kids' animation adventure, but despite a brightly coloured storyboard
throughout and the lively vocals of Renée Zellweger, Chris Rock and John Goodman, the complaint surrounding this film is less about the technical style and skill and more about the cynical moral tone of the script.
Seinfield provides the voice for Barry B Benson, the young bee who has just graduated yet is already tired of the monotony of producing honey day in and day out.
He decides to leave the beehive behind him and explore the human world in the hope of something more exciting.
In this world he finds Zellweger's florist Vanessa Bloome, who shows him the ways of the world and also clarifies the supply and demand logic of the honey industry.
Barry is outraged at the corporate approach and launches a class action lawsuit, demanding freedom and workers' rights for the producers.
The attempt to draw an adult narrative into a children's animation film is brave and ambitious, but you can't help wondering who is being entertained here.
MR MAGORIUM'S WONDER EMPORIUM (U) £19.99Director: Zach Helm
Running time: 93 minutes
*****
Zach Helm caught Hollywood's attention with his smart and imaginative script for Stranger Than Fiction, also starring Dustin Hoffman, as well as Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson (as the writer whose words were playing out in Ferrell's head).
With Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium he takes a fairly significant steer off that path, but still manages to charm with his fondness for tales of good-hearted people driven by a moral core.
Here Nathalie Portman plays Molly Mahoney, the manager of the toy store owned by Hoffman's 243-year-old Magorium.
When the owner decides to step down from high office, evil forces come in to play as the simplicity of his love for all things childlike and innocent is thrown into the ruthless world of modern day commercialism.
Jason Bateman (of Arrested Development and more recently Juno fame) plays Henry Weston, the stiff-lipped accountant who battles between the choices of the real world and that of Magorium's mad imaginary reality.
Fantastically executed, this will definitely hit the spot with the kids.
