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Lots of licensed movie-to-videogame properties end up stinking worse than Bill Clinton and Rush Limbaugh in a mud-wrestling contest. Yet somehow, the Bee Movie game manages to avoid most of the pitfalls and offers up a fun action-platformer experience. And on the Xbox 360, no less!

Part of the appeal of the Bee Movie Game is the game’s sense of playful humor. My wife commented that few games make her laugh, but some moments from the game had her laughing so hard, her sides started hurting. Of course, having some Jerry Seinfeld as the source material doesn’t hurt.

The game loosely follows the plot structure of the film, with lots of expanded content over the course of the game. All the elements you’d expect in an action platformer can be found here; what makes it stand out is the witty dialog and direction. The comedy tends to be of the slapstick/pratfalls variety, which would send people scrambling for the nearest Charlotte cosmetic dentist if it ever happened to them in real life, but it works here.

There is plenty to do, even for the ADHD crowd. There are plenty of objects to collect, puzzles to solve and enemies to defeat. Plus, there is, in essence, a trophy room where you keep mementos of your exploits.

Bee Movie Game may not be as inventive within the genre as Rachet and Clank or Jak and Daxter, but it earns praise for sheer cleverness and comic sensibilities. The bee character is funny and enjoyable, and the humor is kept at a kids-safe level. What more could a person expect, realistically, from a game of this sort?

Over the past 3-5 years, two live-action movies (with a 3D CGI Garfield) have been made from Jim Davis’ comic strip, Garfield. While Brecken Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt aren’t exactly my idea of an all-star cast, Bill Murray’s voiceover work for Garfield was entertaining enough and the movies made for good, light-hearted fare that was safe for the while family to watch.

Now along comes Garfield Gets Real, a direct-to-video movie. If you were expecting another Meyer-Love Hewitt-Murray outing, you will be sorely disappointed in Garfield Gets Real. The title would seem to suggest a blending of live action and CGI animation, but all that’s here is a poor man’s imitation of Toy Story-quality CGI. There is no “real” in Garfield Gets Real.

If you have kids who have seen the live action Garfield movies, they may find the concept of Garfield Gets Real to be a bit confusing and disconcerting. In this film, which takes a post-modern approach, Garfield is aware of the real world, aware of his status as a comic strip star. It’s how he makes his living. And that’s a concept that even the comic strip hasn’t played around with, as far as I know.

The plot is bordering on being incomprehensible and is, at minimum, very slow-paced. The story meanders around showing off Dagwood of the Blondie comic strip in one scene, a generic superhero flying by in another. The upshot, when they finally get to it, is that there’s a hole between Garfield’s comic strip reality and the “real world,” and those who cross over never get back.

This is where the decision to go 100-percent CGI is so disappointing. We could have been treated to a Wizard of Oz in reverse situation, where the beginning and end take place in Garfield’s brightly colored world, but when he lands in the real world, everything becomes drab, dull and less full of life; but by having both worlds in CGI animation, that opportunity was missed entirely.

So of course, Garfield and others do get trapped in the real world and the remainder of the film is spent concerned with getting them back to comic-strip land. The paper-thin plot is simply uninspired and does not stand up to comparisons with other CGI movies like Toy Story or The Incredibles.

The loopy, “let’s toss this into the mix” design of the plot makes one wonder if perhaps a few creative types out in Hollywood need to brush up on their business performance management skills. Just saying.

Despite being a relatively brief film, clocking in at under 80 minutes, the DVD is rather light on the special features; in fact, it’s one of those auto-play DVDs that doesn’t take you to a menu screen, but just starts playing the previews, FBI warning and then the movie itself.

All in all, Garfield Gets Real is a reel disappointment; the cleverness of the two live action/CGI movies is absent and the plot is, simultaneously, both hard to follow and yet not very engaging due to its shallowness. One has to wonder if Jim Davis was involved at all; while the film is still family friendly, Garfield Gets Real won’t hold up to repeat viewings, even among die-hard fans.