Layton T. Montgomery

Layton T. Montgomery is the main antagonist of the 2007 DreamWorks film, Bee Movie. He is a overweight lawyer who hates bees, mostly a talking bee named Barry B. Benson, the protagonist of the film.

He was voiced by John Goodman.

Role
When Barry learns that the humans have been stealing and eating his fellow bees' honey for centuries and the bees have been mistreated (mostly by the use of bee smokers) by beekeepers working for companies that are selling their honey, he resolves to sue the entire human race (mostly the CEOs of the companies who has been selling the honey) and put an end to the exploitation of all bees around the world. He is aided by the help of his best friend Adam Flayman and their new human friend Vanessa Bloome, who is a florist and a bee enthusiast herself.

When the day of the trial came, the CEOs of the honey companies hired their best defense attorney, and it was none other than Layton himself. For his opening statement, Layton mocks the idea of talking bees in the court, which somewhat angered Barry, who then finally takes in the guts to speak on the behalf of the bees, and that it would be crazy for the humans just to take the honey away from the bees just because they're the 'little guy'. As the trial commences, Barry calls in each of the CEOs as witnesses to the stand, where he provides useful evidence against them (such as the exploitation of the black bear for their imaging products due to its taste for honey) to undermine their case, much to the anger of Layton.

The next day, Layton is reading a book regarding to the behavior of bees, as he plans to weaken Barry's case so that he can file for dismissal. Calling Barry to the stand, Layton questions him about his friendship with Vanessa before calling him an illegitimate bee because of conflicting statements regarding to Barry having parents (who are already in the court) and the queen bee giving birth to all new members of the hive. As Layton continues denouncing the bees, this finally results an angry Adam to fly up and prepare to sting Layton in retaliation. However, Barry soon notices Layton winking his eye at his clients, realizing that he's preparing to get himself sting to gain sympathy from the jury. Barry attempts to warn Adam to stop, but he is too late, and after Adam passes out after striking Layton in the butt, Layton start to yell out in pain (in a more exaggerated behavior) before passing out. This puts the bees' credibility in risk, which may result of a chance of dismissal of the case per Layton's motion, which would mean that the humans will continue their exploitation of bees.

However, taking one last trick up his sleeve, Barry learns of a possibilty of presenting a bee smoker to the court as proof of the humans' mistreatment of the bees. After having Adam to stall the court for minutes, Barry and Vanessa finally arrive with a bee smoker. Layton scoffs at this, trying to explain that the device can't actually hurt them. But it wasn't the case when he accidentally exposed the smoke from the smoker to several bees in the court, much to the horror of everyone (including the jury). With their case now proven, the bees finally win the trial, much to everyone's delight. However, Layton is not happy by this, warning Barry that this event will result a bad shift in the balance of nature and that he'll regret this. Layton and his clients walk away from the court in defeat, upset that they have lost the trial and that they can no longer exploit the bees' honey for their own purposes.