Title: The Beekeeper

Year: 2024

Director: David Ayer

Writer: Kurt Wimmer

Cast:

Jason Statham as Adam Clay

Josh Hutcherson as Derek Danforth

Jeremy Irons as Wallace Westwylde

Jemma Redgrave as Jessica Danforth

Synopsis

“Kind-hearted landlady commits suicide after falling victim to a phishing scam, former "Beekeeper" operative Adam Clay sets out on a brutal campaign for revenge upon those responsible.” - IMDB

Intro + Pre-show expectations

I mean do I even really need to introduce this one? Jason Statham, violence, bees, keeping; need I say more? In fact, I don’t know how much more one can want from a movie. Why watch a well-written, emotionally compelling, well-performed, beautifully shot, high-budget, cinematic tour de force, when you can watch Jason Statham keep some bees?

SPOILERS BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Spoiler review and discussion.

The Beekeeper is like cheap liquor, it's like watching little kids learn to skate, it’s like an elementary school play. It is so bad, but you enjoy it. The Beekeeper, directed by David Ayer is your typical one-man-army action movie with the added element of bees. The film does nothing special or unique instead it follows a typical action movie template throughout its 105-minute runtime. As for Jason Statham, he once again proves that an entirely successful, lucrative, multi-decade career in Hollywood can be made being a dollar-store Tom Cruise.

Performances

Unfortunately, as is common in lower-budget action films the performances are not the strongest element. I am not saying they are terrible but some of the performances take away from this otherwise below-average script. Jason Statham is as consistent as always in the main role as he keeps the audience engaged throughout the gory action sequences and can deliver the bee-related puns in a manner that does not come off as cringe (even though it should). One of the few highlights came in Josh Hutcherson returning to the big screen for the first time in what feels like ages. I am aware he has not stopped acting but it has been a noticeably long time since I have seen him in anything noteworthy. And his performance here is quite strong. The portrayal of a privileged, out-of-touch, nepo baby felt as irritating and cringe as it was intended to be. The sort of slang he uses despite his incredibly wealthy family, as well as his inability to understand the consequences of his actions, was arguably the most realistic part of the entire film. Another surprise came in Bobby Naderi. Coming in as one of the lesser-known members of the cast he displayed his ability to deliver comedic lines naturally and organically during the few scenes he had which were quite memorable. Jeremy Irons has a strong performance which is to be expected from an actor of his caliber. However, the rest of the performances from the cast were about average and did not merit any further discussion.

My Final Take

First and foremost, The Beekeeper should be judged for what it is, an excitingly average movie. The film does not strive to be anything more than a typical stock-action movie with a half-famous main character, cool action sequences, and below-average writing, and if within that context the film is pretty good. This film doesn’t really have any themes that are worth mentioning, (I mean c’mon it's a movie about a beekeeper who is a trained killer) however it does a good job at being just interesting enough to make the audience care about the characters and the storyline. Most one-man-army action films like John Wick or Equalizer usually spend considerable time humanizing the characters and establishing the world they live in to add stakes and purpose to the story, but The Beekeeper speedruns this process to get to the explosions and exorbitant violence as quickly as possible. And in all honesty, I respect this approach. The creators aren’t trying to take themselves too seriously and make this ridiculous concept seem any less absurd. And they show this absurdity in other ways as well. Certain action scenes look more like something out of a GTA 5 online lobby judging by the portable rail guns with unlimited ammunition as well as the stealth scenes that seem like they are pulled directly from a level in a Hitman video game. There is even a stereotypical final boss-like character who has an accent and wears bright colours for no other reason than to remind the viewer that they are just important enough to die in a slightly more dramatic way. These aren’t necessarily bad things but the longer I watched the more I realized the whole design of the film feels a lot like just an action video game that you probably bought on sale.

The Beekeeper feels like the cinematic equivalent of the phrase: hell yea! It is not a good film overall, however, it is incredibly fun to watch. The best way to describe it would be to say it plays like an action video game with a live-action realization. Despite my criticism of Statham he knows what he’s good at, and does it well enough. I can’t see him ever winning an award for almost any acting but he has certainly found his niche. I recommend this movie if you are interested in some half-decent background noise while you are in the middle of something else or maybe if you really like Jason Statham for some reason (if the second option applies to you, please reevaluate your life choices). Nevertheless, please take this critique with a grain of salt, maybe Jason Statham reminding the audience that we should always protect the hive resonated more with some of us.

Score

Writing: 4/10

Style: 5/10

Performance: 6.5/10

Direction: 7/10

Cinematography: 5/10

Total: 27.5/50