The Beekeeper review: Predictable Jason Statham actioner lacks buzz
Even an ass-kicking Statham can't 'protect the hive' from general boredom in David Ayer's latest
Film Reviews Beekeeper
In The Beekeeper, Jason Statham plays, as you may well have surmised, a beekeeper. When we first meet him, this beekeeper is the stoic kind, unconcerned with the world beyond his hive. Even the woman who’s renting him a barn where he harvests his bees’ honey is kept at arm’s length. Soon, though, we learn this beekeeper used to also be, well, another kind of “beekeeper.” And if me saying the film’s title oh so many times in this intro has already irked you enough, worry: for David Ayer’s efficiently directed actioner utters it so many times and exhausts its bluntly delivered metaphor so often that just watching Statham punch and shoot his way out of any scene he’s in becomes an exercise in exhaustion.
Clay (Statham) lives for his bees. He’s methodical in how he cares for them. He wants nothing more than to keep them safe. It’d be a prerogative if it didn’t also feel like a self-imposed mission, a way, perhaps, to turn what used to be his job into a newfound way of life out here in the middle of nowhere. And it’s that previous life that catches up to him when Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad), his landlady, winds up dead in her home—a suicide provoked by the sudden loss of all of her money courtesy of a well-orchestrated phishing scam Clay then vows to take down.
He’s well equipped to do so. In his past life, he was a “Beekeeper,” part of a clandestine organization whose sole directive was to keep “the hive” (namely the USA) safe from threats that government branches like the FBI and the CIA couldn’t well handle themselves. Retired now, but driven to avenge his endearing neighbor’s death, Clay taps into his Beekeeper background and begins to wage a knock ’em and sock ’em war against the people scamming the elderly, one call center at a time, slowly moving ever closer to the higher echelons of power where the money then directs him. Also on the hunt for those who helped scam Ms. Parker is her daughter, Agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman), who begins leveraging her FBI skills to try and stop Clay from further causing major destruction (he first burns down an entire call center building) and to figure out who is behind this multi-million dollar operation (hint: this goes all the way up). One wonders why the script never dwells on Agent Parker’s grief, let alone weaves it into a much more textured characterization; she’s reduced to being torn between wanting Clay to get revenge and being saddled with a moral high ground given her employer.
What this means is that The Beekeeper, entranced as it is with honeyed melittological metaphors, tells us time and time again how Clay’s actions protect the “hive,” with the baddies he encounters becoming dangerous hornets he needs to dispose of for the betterment of us all. Outside, of course, of the laws that are in place to deal with such matters: “Until they fail,” Clay tells Agent Parker. “Then you have me.” He’s a vigilante with a moral compass (aren’t they all?) and in this way, this Kurt Wimmer-penned project, much like many of his previous projects (including Salt, Ultraviolet, and Expend4bles) serves mostly as an excuse for highly choreographed action sequences where Statham does what he does best: kick ass. And in that The Beekeeper delivers.
But everything around it is so preposterous and laughable—especially once we meet the two key figures Clay is working his way toward: Josh Hutcherson’s Derek Danforth (a gallivanting spoiled rich kid who’s clearly enjoying his scamming empire) and Jeremy Irons’ Wallace Westwyld (implausibly a former CIA director turned Derek’s erstwhile corporate babysitter). At least Hutcherson is having a ball playing such a lousy douche. Armed with an office skateboard, masseurs, and sound bowl experts, he perfectly captures that kind of compassionless tech bro CEO who believes making money is the be-all and end-all. Irons, on the other hand, is saddled with lines like “When a beekeeper says you’re going to die, you’re dead” with something only slightly resembling a straight face. Elsewhere, Rashad and Minnie Driver (as the very fashionable CIA director) are doing the most with what little they’re given.
Glorifying endless violence as these films tend to do (fingers are severed, limbs are torn, cheeks are pierced, heads are blown), The Beekeeper is exactly what it appears to be. Nothing more, nothing less. But even within that two-dimensional framework—wherein a vigilante seemingly fighting government and financial corruption is set up to be the begrudging good guy we’re supposed to root for, no matter how craven his violent cruel streak may be—The Beekeeper feels stale and rather one-note. The bee metaphors, driven to the ground as they are, become laughable and may well drive you to exasperation as Statham handily defeats endless SWAT teams and FBI agents with little more than his cunning and a pair of fists. It’s all, in the end, much too weightless, with a message that feels tacked on lest we acknowledge how much we’re invested in seeing, yet again, a laconic hero make others bleed and die at his hand. Over and over and over and over again.
The Beekeeper opens in theaters January 12
32 Comments
Does he have to fight a giant prehistoric bee?
That trailer, though. I felt some laughter tinged with vomit welling up. Is this a live action cartoon? If they had pushed it further and added some smirky closeups this might have been a parody. The Pollinator would have been more apt, cause he’s gonna dust your ass.
You should stop watching so much Disney and Marvel. Then your vomit attacks would decrease.
“The Pollinator would have been more apt, cause he’s gonna dust your ass.
You don’t HAVE to publicize every stupid thought you have.
I’ve seen the trailer in theaters several times and it always makes me laugh, although not at the times when it is trying to.
This is why I promptly arrive late to every show (and stand in the lobby for good measure). Those trailers are so loud, long and many that I can’t process it. And then there’s Kidman…
I’ve been wondering what this movie was about.Thanks, sounds like a solid recommendation for a good dumb Statham action movie.
Anyone who can’t get enjoyment out of douchey tech bros getting their asses kicked while pathetically offering NFT bribes is not someone I have anything to discuss with.
So would you say that there isn’t much…sting to it? That it isn’t worth the buzz? (Dammit, the headline uses the “buzz” pun.)
“If you’re looking for some wind beneath your wings and have pollen-ty of patience, well honey, this mindless action flick packs enough sting to keep you buzzing. Also, thorax.”
Yaas, Queen!
God these pun threads just drone on and on…
This movie might lead to CCD (cinema collapse disorder)!
I think I’m allergic to these puns, I’m breaking out in hives.
Honey, you may be a queen in your own mind, but you just an average worker in the hive of life.
All of you… DIE!!!!
Great movie. A clear recommendation.
I both hate that headline *AND* would’ve hated it if you hadn’t made that exact joke. A+.
A movie where Jason Statham burns down a bunch of telemarketers? Fuck yes, I will watch this 20 times and if a telemarketer calls while I’m watching, I will answer and say “Not now, Katie from account services, I am watching Jason Statham as THE BEEKEEPER set your damn building on fire. You better get to stoppin’, droppin’ and rollin’!”
I want to see fashionable Minnie Driver
I’ll be seeing this, as my wife has a Jason Statham… problem.
I mean this seems like fun enough to watch at home with some whiskey and friends, and to drink everytime someone says “hive”.
Sometimes Betancourt’s writing comes off as a bit thesaurus-y to me. But I’m not mad because that means I learn words like “melittological”, which I totally won’t awkwardly force into my next conversation.
A few things that occurred to me as I read the review:- The still image in the embedded trailer seems to be a cloud of bees in the process of combining into a Jason Statham, and it’s a damn shame that isn’t the movie. (…or is it?)- Pretty lucky that his neighbor’s daughter is an FBI agent and can keep an eye on things and presumably help Statham out in various covert ways.
– “Wallace Westwyld”? No.
It sounds like it could be one of Statham’s character’s insane boasts in the movie ‘Spy’: “Once for a mission I merged my consciousness with the hive mind of a bee colony!”
That sounds a bit too ‘arty’ for what I saw in the trailer. The whole thing seems to have the feel of those slappy martial arts flicks from the 1970s produced in Asia (they were popular though and important).
Does he show more than one emotion in this or is it just the same-old-wooden Statham?EDIT: Just saw the D grade. Same ol’ Statham.
Love to see an honest-to-goodness D rating on the AV Club again.
Farley did it better.
Gimme back moy bees!
So, it’s basically The Equalizer, but white and with bees? Okay.
Disappointingly obvious alternate headline:Also, this trailer looked like the type of parody Statham himself gave us in Spy. C’mon, Jason!