The Beekeeper

 This review may contain spoilers!

 

The Beekeeper follows Adam Clay, a retired special intelligence operative known as a 'Beekeeper' who operates outside of the system to protect the hive/maintain the status quo. When Adam's neighbour takes her own life after being targetted by a financial scam, the Beekeeper sets off on a vendetta that will seem him escalate his action right up to the President of the United States.

 

I give credit where it's due to the final act of the film. It is here that all of the stereotypes or cartoonish action set pieces finally come together in a brutal, explosive manner. That final act has a real driving force behind, the action is so quick and precise that you really sit up and pay attention. Overall, I really considered this to be where the consistently great stuntwork hits a stride well worth remarking upon.

 

Jason Statham, who played Adam Clay, works solidly in the sort of action film he does best at; Statham's ability to look like the toughest guy in the room while stoically spitting out bee puns is a talent I genuinely think few other performers could pull off. Bobby Naderi, who played Agent Matt Wiley, is an excellent wry wit to Raver-Lampman's more erratic performance; I like how Naderi drew humour out without ever compromising the more severe tone of a scene. Jemma Redgrave, who played President Danforth, is quite impressive as the stately influential leader of the free world; Redgrave plays nicely with making the audience guess if her character is complicit in her on-screen son's criminal actions.

 

However, the best performance came from Josh Hutcherson, who played Derek Danforth. This role feels like something Hutcherson is really having a lot of fun with and seeing that kind of energy hooked me in almost immediately. You get so many of these preppy rich kid antagonist roles in action films who almost lean into the archetype so much it becomes parody. But Hutcherson really lives in it here, which is what makes it work so well. You believe Derek is quite aloof and throws his time into singing crystal bowl meditation (it exists I Googled it). But the crucial point is the flick into this narcissistic hateful entrepreneur who has built his empire on the back of real misery dealt to others. Watching the sheer lack of remorse and the almost careless way Hutcherson throws around his role's sense of violence and revenge is quite gripping. The Beekeeper might not stand tall alongside other action films of recent years but it does have a great leading antagonist in Josh Hutcherson.

 

Jason Statham action movies aren't the sort of film with a great track record, even if the actor himself can nail the particular parts he is playing. You pair that with David Ayer, a man with the claim to Bright and the bad Suicide Squad film, and you get a sense where this is all going. The Beekeeper is the sort of film that likes to get up on a soapbox and tell you the big message behind it; often acting as subtle as the blunt force trauma it's main protagonist is inflicting. The whole message that online/phone scams are bad and that preying on the elderly in our society is bad is a concept no one is going to disagree with; in fact it's so unremarkable a thought that it's hard to imagine a whole vendetta action flick about a guy called a 'beekeeper' being based around it. As an action film it is also riddled with a lot of played out tropes, just the worldbuilding around the Beekeeper organisation being a special forces types organisation that works 'outside the system' felt played out enough. Throw a back and forth FBI partnership in the mix and a big American megacorp behind it all and this film starts to feel like it doesn't have an original bone in it's body. Yet the moments that are unique to the film are perhaps the worst of all: the bee stuff. Obviously, our protagonist is something called a 'beekeeper' - it means he's a real badass apparently (though he does retire to become an actual beekeeper). Yet despite the core premise I don't know why the film felt brave to make every other piece of dialogue a bee pun or fact. The amount of times I had to listen to someone say a clunky line about getting stung was insufferable and immediately marked this as one of the worst action scripts I'm probably going to sit through all of 2024.

 

David Ayer directed Fury, a neat little war film that shows a crew piloting a tank and it is shot gorgeously. That beautiful film feels like a long time ago, especially as I watch the most stock standard shooting I have ever seen in The Beekeeper. Everything is just compactly framed, there isn't real much of an attempt for creativity here and it all just looks to simple to the eye. The editing also sets a weak pace, with some scenes even feeling a little too abrupt in places. Overall, this is a film you'd expect to be five deep in the Die Hard or Transporter series, not a fresh action vehicle. The score for the feature was a generic Hollywood blockbuster warble, almost deafeningly uninspired in the big action scenes.

 

Emmy Raver-Lampman, who played Agent Verona Parker, is quite a hard sell as an FBI agent; this role is so impulsive and all over the place in the course of the narrative that it becomes hard to root for her or even really understand her. Jeremy Irons, who played Wallace Westwyld, looks like he entirely hates his role and the script the whole way through; seeing Irons as this dottery old coward who tangents through Beekeeper exposition feels like a colossal waste of talent. David Witts, who played Mickey Garnett, is the rich kid antagonist stereotype Hutcherson managed to avoid in this film; Witts' performance is a such a clown that it becomes tough to really see him as any kind of criminal underworld type. Taylor James, who played Lazarus, feels like a figure out of a Neil Blomkamp sci-fi piece; from the physicality to the line delivery there is no part of James' role that made me feel like he could be a real character. Phylicia Rashad, who played Eloise Parker, gives no emotional range in her role; Rashad might be boxed in as the caring matronly type but she does no work to get herself out of that stereotype. Minnie Driver, who played Director Janet Harward, feels like she is barely off script with some of her line delivery; Driver just never feels like she has the severity or power that you'd attribute to a CIA director type. Megan Le, who played Anisette, could have come from a comic book and really doesn't belong in this film of all places; I also felt like Le's over the top role cost the concept of a 'Beekeeper' some credibility.

I don't know who has had the worse track record of late: Jason Statham or David Ayer. Both have clearly united for a career low. I would give The Beekeeper a 3/10.