I missed at least some of the dialogue on the advance screening of Bee Movie. Not because the audience was laughing too loud, but because the kids in the room were acting up. They were, to say the least, not into it. Bee Movie wants to be the latest in Hollywood’s favorite (i.e., most lucrative) genre, the animated movie that appeals to the entire family. The paradigm is a fairy tale or story with some other generic recognition factor for kids, sassed up just enough to hold their attention and with enough celebrity voices and pop-culture references to keep parents entertained. I can see where it seemed like Jerry Seinfeld was a natural for a movie like this: Prior to his hit sitcom, he was known in the standup world as a comic who didn’t swear or do sex jokes. But there’s a substantial gap between “inoffensive for children” and “appealing to children,” and that gap is where this movie gets lost. Seinfeld co-wrote and produced the movie, and he seems to be trying to capture the kid audience by watering down his standard form of observational humor. He plays Barry B. Benson, a bee unhappy to learn upon graduation from school that his life options are entirely limited to making honey. Exploring the world outside of the hive, he befriends a florist (Renée Zellweger) and learns that honey is being harvested and eaten by humans. Appalled, he brings a lawsuit against the human race, a suit that has unexpected consequences but in the end provides a mild ecological message for all. Seinfeld concocted the script with writers from his television show instead of someone seasoned in animated films, and the result is a movie with a string of moderately amusing gags and one-liners but nothing to really involve the audience. The animation by Dreamworks Studios (Antz, A Shark Tale) demonstrates why Pixar continues to dominate the field: It’s proficient but generally uninspired.

If you’ve read the book Martian Child, by the successful science fiction writer David Gerrold (despite a series of award-winning novels, he may be best known for the teleplay of the Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”), you’ll know that it is a fictionalized account of his own experiences as a gay man who adopts a troubled, hyperactive eight-year-old boy. (In what is apparently a not uncommon reaction among emotionally abused children, the boy claims to be a Martian.) And if you’ve read the book, you may not recognize the film that has been made from it. As played by John Cusack, David is not gay but a grieving widower. (Or maybe he’s mourning the death of his fiancée—it’s not clear.) He decides to adopt a child because it’s what his late whatever-she-was wanted to do. And he recognizes some of his own youthful geekiness in this withdrawn (lose the hyperactivity) six-year-old (a much cuter age, you know).