The Beekeeper Review: Join the Beehive

A January action film directed by Jason Statham titled The beekeeper comes with the weight of expectations. “Beekeeper” must have a double meaning. The film must be littered with tongue-in-cheek puns and references. The campaign needs to be fun and creative, ideally with bee-centric joke items. And above all, the film must be ridiculous, but with a serious face that hides the knowing wink behind the curtain.

Good news: The beekeeper checks all of these boxes.

I enjoyed the film when I first saw it, but since then it has grown on me like honey in a honeycomb. Yes, some of the main plot points make no sense at all, including the character’s death, which sets the entire plot in motion. And half the cast isn’t quite at the level of tongue-in-cheek action fun of Jason Statham and Jeremy Irons (who dutifully follow Michael Nyqvist’s lead). John Wick as a “guy who tells the irritable villain how extremely fucked he is”). But if you’re looking for breezy January genre fare, you could do a lot worse.

The basic premise is that Statham’s Adam Clay, a tough retired guy living a quiet life as a beekeeper, goes up against an evil call center that has defrauded someone he cares deeply about. As Clay investigates (and destroys) those responsible for the plan, he uncovers a deep conspiracy (and even more people to destroy).

The beekeeper opens with a credit sequence full of bee imagery – bee shots, art and more – and the first appearance features Clay in full beekeeping getup. That should prepare you for the onslaught of bee jokes and references to come.

But the film has more than just bee humor. The fight scenes are great, designed by action maestro Jeremy Marinas (John Wick: Chapter 4) and the use of props to keep the fight fresh. The first major action sequence takes place in a call center, where Statham uses phones, keyboards, computer monitors and anything else he can get his hands on to beat up the scammers and their security team. Marinas and director David Ayer (End of watch) film the sequence well, create clear visual lines so the audience can follow the action, and use sharp editing to bring out the full impact.

Statham is his reliable self, mixing his effortlessly gruff charm with his comedic chops to sell the ridiculous lines he has to deliver. And the film looks great – Ayer and cinematographer Gabriel Beristain cleverly add a yellow/amber color palette to the images that suits the title and atmosphere, often making it feel like you’re watching the film from inside a honeycomb.

The villains are also cheekily over-the-top, which only adds to this The beekeeperThe overall atmosphere. He works for brash tech brother Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), son of the US president (Jemma Redgrave), and the call center crew is something of a mix Wolf of Wall Streetis Jordan Belfort with an evangelical pastor adding a pinch Die HardCocaine snorting scumbag Harry Ellis. They wear flashy suits, high-five after stealing from old people, and generally behave like a fraternity that has been paid billions of dollars for committing crimes.

Statham’s revenge on them is all the more entertaining. The beekeeper is notable for showcasing Statham’s ability to effortlessly utter phrases like “You sound young. I bet you don’t have any estate planning,” or the endless bee references mentioned above. He’s one of the few people on the planet who can make things like this sound funny and terrifying at the same time, and without him the film probably wouldn’t work. (Or, frankly, it wouldn’t have happened without his involvement.)

A lot of things don’t work The beekeeper. When I first saw it, the shoddy plot (the event that motivates Statham’s revenge didn’t really stand up to scrutiny) and a boring FBI B-plot Umbrella AcademyEmmy Raver-Lampman dampened my enjoyment a bit.

Raver-Lampman plays Agent Verona Parker, the daughter of the fraud victim who avenges Statham. Her character is placed in the familiar position of a public servant who hunts down the man who does what she would like to do. (In this case, revenge for her mother.) Unfortunately, this part of the film is a derivative of better versions of this plot: her relationship with her mother is barely sketched out and we don’t see much of her anguish over her predicament.

A very minor spoiler, since this happens early in the film: The plot-crucial death I mentioned earlier is the suicide of Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad), a sweet old lady who rents a room to the Clay Beekeeper. When the call center scammers rob her and her charity of everything, she immediately takes her own life – not a call to any of her loving children, not a request to Clay or the authorities for help. It softens the impact of the revenge story by downplaying Clay and Agent Parker’s relationships with Eloise, and the revenge would have been just as righteous had she simply been betrayed.

But the film gets better with distance. Days later, I mostly remember the good times The beekeeper Offerings: Jason Statham lashes out at fools who deserve to be beaten, expressing the pain in exciting and inventive ways while delivering bee-themed one-liners. Sometimes that’s all you want from a bee movie.

The beekeeper will start pollinating the halls on January 12th.