Maya the Bee: The Honey Games

image for Maya the Bee: The Honey Games

Short takes

Parental guidance recommended under 5 due to some scary scenes. Likely to lack interest for most children over 8.

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Maya the Bee: The Honey Games
  • a review of Maya the Bee: The Honey Games completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 6 August 2018.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 5 Parental guidance recommended due to some scary scenes
Children aged 5-8 OK for this age group
Children aged 8 and over OK for this age group, but likely to lack interest for older children

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Maya the Bee: The Honey Games
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: None
Length: 85 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Maya (voice of Coco Jack Gillies) is an enthusiastic young bee who believes in herself and has a strong desire to help others. She hears that the Queen’s (Justine Clark) estranged sister, The Empress of Buzztopia (Marney McQueen) has sent an order for their hive to give half of its meagre store of honey to The Honey Games, despite the fact that this means their colony may not survive the winter. Maya is furious and sets out to right the injustice of the situation.

Unfortunately, Maya and her best friend Willi (Benson Jack Anthony) wind up making the situation far worse when their meeting with the Empress goes terribly wrong. Maya suddenly finds herself competing in the Honey Games for the survival of her entire colony. She and Willi must make the most of their team of misfit bugs and work together to defeat the cruel Violet (Linda Ngo) and her team of champions from Buzztropolis.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Threats to survival; competition

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence and accidental harm in this movie including:

  • During a dragonfly race a number of bugs bang together  and crash into the bushes
  • Maya crashes into two guards from Buzztropolis.
  • Maya and Willi inadvertently crash into the Empress, cover her with honey and stick to her.
  • Competitors throw pollen puffs at each other.
  • Giant drops of water knock bugs off a course.
  • Maya crashes into the honey cup and breaks it.
  • Violet tries to push Maya and her team mates off their dragonflies

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • There is a giant monster turtle in the maze and the competitors are warned not to wake it. Willi accidentally rouses the creature, much to the horror of his teammates and the giant snapping turtle crashes through the maze, dragging the terrified bugs with him. The scene ends well but very young viewers may be concerned by the glowing eyes and the raging turtle.
  • Towards the end of the film there is a creepy shadow lurking in the darkness. It is later shown to be an evil spider intent on trapping and eating the young bugs. Violet and her team are caught in the web and look as though they are about to be killed when Maya and her team come to their rescue. Some very young viewers may be disturbed by the creepy character and her threatening ways.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Most children in this age group are unlikely to be disturbed by anything in this film

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Nothing of concern

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Nothing of concern

Product placement

Nothing of concern

Sexual references

Nothing of concern

Nudity and sexual activity

Nothing of concern

Use of substances

Nothing of concern

Coarse language

There is some name calling in this film including “loser”, “loser bugs” and “mixed up bunch of weirdos”.

In a nutshell

Maya the Bee: The Honey Games is an animated film with a predictable plot which is aimed at young audiences. There are some scenes that may scare very young viewers, so parental guidance is recommended for children under 5. The film is likely to lack interest for over eights.

The main messages from this movie are:

  •  we should all believe in ourselves
  • everyone has a special talent
  • by working together we achieve far more than we ever could alone.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • kindness towards others, forgiveness and understanding
  • taking responsibility for our own actions
  • teamwork

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children the importance of honesty and learning from our mistakes as well as the importance of listening to parental advice about certain situations instead of taking action into your own hands.