Man of action Jason Statham (Meg 2, Expend4bles) is back and this time he’s got bees with him in the action/revenge film The Beekeeper.
Statham stars as Adam Clay, a quiet honey farmer renting space from elderly, retired teacher Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad) who also happens to be his only friend. When Parker receives an alert on her computer that it has a virus, she calls the number on her screen, which connects her to the United Data Group company. The company is really a data mining firm, and Parker becomes their next victim, losing her life savings along with $2 million she managed for a charity.
That night, Clay drops by to deliver some honey and discovers her lifeless body. She shot herself, unable to live with her mistake. This sends Clay on a mission of revenge to literally burn down the business involved with the theft and take down those running it.
Because, you see, Clay isn’t just a beekeeper…he’s a retired Beekeeper! What is that, you – and multiple characters in the film – ask? Well, it’s a trained expert assassin who the government (specifically, the CIA) uses to handle unofficial jobs.
In the film’s most entertaining scene, Clay arrives at the United Data Group building after retrieving the address from a source at the CIA. He knocks out the security guards and goes through the lobby with two canisters of gasoline. Clay orders the girl at the front desk to leave because there’s going to be a fire and heads to the main call center room.
There, he pours gasoline over the computers, phones, and monitors along with a few workers not fast enough to leave. Clay then rigs one computer so that the next call for help from one of the company’s unsuspecting marks will ignite the room. It’s an effective method to shut down United and…BOOM!…the fire engulfs the building.
However, Clay’s only just taken the first steps on his road to revenge. His next task is to hunt down the people at the top of the phishing scam and, to put it bluntly, end them. His list includes Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), a young, arrogant twenty-something creep whose mother is a woman in high places. It also includes Danforth’s protector, Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), a former director of the CIA.
Overly violent and preposterous, The Beekeeper is a mindless (and tedious) revenge film that almost feels like a spoof of itself. The shoot-outs are blurred and chaotic, and the fight scenes are mediocre and unimpressive.
Jason Statham just Jason Statham’s his way through the film as the ex-government assassin who’s on a mission to take down those involved in his friend’s tragic end. Unfortunately, there’s nothing new here. Statham has played this type of role countless times before and has done it much better and with more entertaining one-liners.
Hutcherson is effective as the annoying young mastermind behind the phishing company, but even his character is basically one-dimensional. Jeremy Irons as Westwyld gives the best performance in the film as the one person who knows only too well the threat Clay is to him and Danforth, and what it’s going to take to stop him.
With ridiculous action scenes and even more ridiculous dialogue and puns, The Beekeeper‘s all buzz and no sting. It adds nothing new to the action film genre and will likely be swatted down at the box office.
GRADE: C-
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, drug use, some sexual references, and strong violence throughout
Release Date: January 12, 2024
Running Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Directed By: David Ayer
Studio: Amazon MGM Studios
