Vanessa, voiced by Renee Zellweger, and bee Barry B. Benson, voiced by Jerry Seinfeld, are seen in the animated film "Bee Movie." The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I -- general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of Amer ica rating is PG -- parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

(CNS photo/DreamWorks/Paramount)

NEW YORK (CNS) -- "Bee Movie" (DreamWorks) may just do for bees what "Ratatouille" did for rats.

The film, the brainchild of Jerry Seinfeld, is a generally delightful animated feature concerning a scrappy bee, Barry (voice of Seinfeld), who, after graduation, learns he will spend his entire life as a worker bee in the same dull job in the Honex Corp. hive, a prospect he finds understandably stultifying.

To the consternation of his dutiful worker-bee parents, Janet (Kathy Bates) and Martin (Barry Levinson), he declares he wants more out of life.

When the so-called Pollen Jocks, the macho bees who do the lion's share of pollinating, see him and his pal Adam (Matthew Broderick) sweet-talking a couple of female bees and challenge the diminutive Barry to join them on their next expedition outside the hive, he accepts with alacrity. From this point on, the film -- a bit slow to get started -- hits its stride.

A whirlwind aerial tour of Manhattan leads to him nearly being pummeled by a tennis ball and later by its macho, tennis-playing owner, Ken (Patrick Warburton).

Rescued by Ken's florist would-be girlfriend Vanessa (Renee Zellweger), Barry returns to thank her for the good deed. Astonished at first that a bee can talk (in the movie's universe, all bees can speak but protocol forbids them to speak with humans), she becomes pals with him.

Accompanying her to the supermarket one day, he is amazed to see the jars of honey, and gets it into his head that humans are exploiting all the work done by his hard-working bee brethren. "When I get through with them, every time they say 'Honey, I'm home,' they'll have to pay us a royalty," he vows.

With Vanessa's support, he brings the case to court, where he fights the honey industry's corrupt Southern lawyer, Layton T. Montgomery (John Goodman in a delicious, lip-smacking turn).

We won't reveal the outcome of the case or what follows, but among the highlights of the trial are the testimony by actor Ray Liotta, who in the film's conceit, has lent his name to a line of honey, and Sting -- who has the audacity, in Barry's opinion, to name himself for the bee's trademark accoutrement. (Both actors provide their own voices, which rates them as good sports indeed, considering the comic skewering both endure. Ditto Larry King, elsewhere.)

The film has an often very funny script (by Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, Barry Marder and Andy Robin), with more bee puns than you would think possible; features voice work from a cast including Chris Rock as Mooseblood the Mosquito, Oprah Winfrey as the judge, Rip Torn as the lead Pollen Jock, and many more; and, ultimately, delivers a valuable ecological lesson (the pollinating bees are far more essential to our existence than we stop to consider, and the film demonstrates how).

All of that makes this film -- directed by Simon J. Smith and Steve Hickner -- above-average family fare, if not quite in the first rank of animated classics.

There is some mild innuendo that should go clear over the heads of the youngest children. There's also a single use of bee profanity.

A "B-movie" (in the old sense of the term) this most certainly isn't.

The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I -- general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG -- parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

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Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.