It's so unfunny it almost stings.

"I never meant it to turn out like this," laments Barry B. Benson (voiced by Jerry Seinfeld), a well-meaning bee, referring to disastrous consequences that arise from questioning humans profiting from honey. You can't help but wonder if Seinfeld expressed a similar lament after seeing the finished product of his first venture into animated films.

Based on the patter he comes up with for his character's shtick, Seinfeld seems to have devolved from the witty observer of human nature we saw on TV into a bad Catskills comic.

Lines like "What do you think, buzzy boy? Are you bee enough?" have little to offer. Bad puns abound. During a graduation ceremony, Barry notes: "There's a lot of pomp, under the circumstances."

Bada-bing.

The story is tedious and often seems to be running on empty. The animation has a garish look, though there are a few eye-catching, colorful visuals, particularly segments in Central Park. But most of the characters lack distinctive personalities.

Barry has just graduated from college (he got "a perfect report card: all B's") and lives with his parents in a hive that looks like something out of The Jetsons. He is preparing for a lifetime of honey-related labor, like every other bee in New Hive City, for a corporation known as Honex. But Barry wants to see the world.

Once he flies out of the hive, he has a mildly amusing adventure stuck to a tennis ball and ends up in the apartment of Vanessa (a lackluster Renee Zellweger). Because she saved his life, he befriends her after breaking the No. 1 bee rule by talking to a human. When he visits a grocery store, he deduces that humans are "stealing" the bees' honey and profiting from it, prompting Barry to sue the human race.

The story points to the importance of working together for the common good. We're treated to a smattering of environmental concern about the need for bees and pollination in the natural order. There's even a message that seems to imply that working for the man ain't so bad after all. The theme is as murky as a jar of old honey. An essential truth was intended to be summed up in this bland truism: "Every small job, if it's done well, means a lot."

Bee Movie is certainly not low-budget, but it has all the staying power and creative value of a B-movie. The secret life of bees, as told by Seinfeld, is a bore with a capital B.