‘The Beekeeper” Review — Jason Statham Stars in the Perfect B(ee) Movie

The Big Picture

• Statham and Ayer deliver one of the wildest mainstream action movies in a while with
  The Beekeeper
  .
• The Beekeeper
  strikes the perfect balance between grittiness and silliness.
• Statham’s commitment to the role makes beating people up feel cinematic.

Jason Statham is a modern action icon. He’s been part of big franchises like Fast and Furious and The Expendables, but where he shines is almost always in the movies where you’d least expect it. Like Gerard Butler, he is one of the few movie stars left who can headline a non-IP driven action flick that feels like it came straight out of the 90s, and completely sell it. At this point, I couldn’t care less about seeing some superheroes punch each other while drowning in hazy CGI. I want to see Statham punching people while sometimes drowning in hazy CGI.

The Beekeeper is exactly what the doctor ordered and then some. Not only does it deliver all the B-movie goodness you’d want, but it’s one of the most wild mainstream action movies to hit the big screen in a while. You don’t go into a movie like The Beekeeper expecting a twist, because it doesn’t seem like that kind of ride, but oh does it have one. David Ayer hasn’t delivered a truly great movie since Fury, which came out nearly ten years ago. With The Beekeeper, he has never been better.

What Is ‘The Beekeeper’ About?

In The Beekeeper, Statham plays Adam Clay, who, as you might have already guessed, is a beekeeper. He maintains a close friendship with the wealthy but kind philanthropist Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad), who unfortunately falls victim to a massive phishing scam that steals away her entire fortune. Distraught, Ms. Parker ends up taking her own life, and while her FBI agent daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman) initially believes that her beekeeping friend is behind it, Clay is quick to figure out what’s going on.

Clay isn’t your typical beekeeper. While, yes, he does tend to his bees for honey, he is also a former operative of a top secret organization known as the “Beekeepers.” We don’t really learn much about what the Beekeepers do outside of kicking ass and taking names all in the name of “protecting the hive,” but we are quick to learn that his next target of scammers is living on borrowed time, because Clay is going to get to them through any means necessary.

Almost immediately, Clay finds one of the company’s main offices and burns it to the ground, which alerts Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), the coke-addicted 28-year-old who runs the entire operation, alongside his chief advisor, Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons). What follows is a revenge saga full of bee puns, violence, vague references to Clay’s past, and allusions to modern corruption. In other words, it is everything you could ask for from a Statham-led action bonanza.

‘The Beekeeper’ Never Takes Itself Too Seriously

Kurt Wimmer penned the script for Ayer’s latest and, while his name might not sound too familiar, he does have plenty of experience in the action genre. However, the quality of his work hasn’t always been top-notch, with credits that include Expend4bles and the Point Break remake. That said, Wimmer shows a lot of improvement and is mostly able to balance the grittiness and the silliness in The Beekeeper. He’s able to take a pressing topic such as phishing scams preying on the elderly and turn it into a big, bombastic action movie. It’s not as sloppy as you would think.

Thankfully, Ayer and Statham embrace the truly goofy and playful nature of the script. They feel like they are fully in their element. It might not have the most original premise for an action movie, feeling very familiar to other releases in this genre, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. The plot continuously raises the stakes to insane and unpredictable levels, and while some may scoff at the unholy amount of bee puns that populate The Beekeeper’s 100 runtime, there’s also something endearing about it. That might sound like a strange thing to say for a movie that has Statham beating a man to death with a stapler, but it works.

Statham’s character takes a back seat a handful of times, and while it does lose some of its zany violent magic when this happens, it also makes his character feel all the more intimidating and mysterious. He’s almost like the Terminator in the way he walks into tech labs, ready to dismember all the scammers with ties to a company that seemingly is much more powerful than he initially thought.

Jason Statham Gets to Do What He Does Best in ‘The Beekeeper’

Statham will probably never win an Academy Award (although I would argue his scene-stealing role in Paul Feig’s Spy should have earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination), but he’s almost always committed to every single role he plays. He knows what his audience wants, and he seems more than happy to give it to them. In The Beekeeper, Statham once again gives his utmost commitment to the role, with his one-of-a-kind screen presence where he can make beating people up feel so cinematic. He can play these kinds of parts in his sleep, but he never phones it in.

Statham is also supported by an equally great ensemble, including Irons, who wonderfully hams it up and gets unhinged in his villainous role, and Hutcherson, usually more chrismatic in his parts, who excels at playing such a pathetic and detestable stooge. Raver-Lampman gets a sub-plot as well where she exchanges witty banter with Bobby Naderi, and while good, it never feels as interesting as everything else unfolding on the screen.

‘The Beekeeper’ Is Destined to Become a Buzzy Cult Action Movie

The Beekeeper is made for a very specific audience. Those who don’t want their action paired with a large quantity of puns and cheese won’t find much here. The title alone hints at this being much more of a throwback to the action movies of a different era. Where the Mission: Impossible and John Wick franchises have excelled at pairing breathtaking action with top-notch world-building, The Beekeeper isn’t trying to do that. It just wants its audience to have the time of their lives on this wild ride. It’s an action movie with plot beats that might make certain audience members raise their eyebrows and scoff, but it will have Statham devotees smiling, laughing, and cheering in their seats.

The Beekeeper is now available to stream on MGM+ in the U.S.

WATCH ON MGM+