Last week, I treated myself to a movie. I had a 7:00 AM dentist appointment and made it back to campus in time for my one class of the day. A reward felt warranted. What I didn’t know was that seeing David Ayer’s The Beekeeper, would be anything but a reward, but more of a monotonous slog that’s inter-spliced with half-baked action sequences. To be honest, seeing The Beekeeper felt like a chore. There would have been more pleasure derived in taking out the trash in the rain while wearing just socks. If you’ve done that before, you’re now comprehending my disdain for this action film that’s the personification of action flicks post-2020.
With a runtime of 105 minutes, Ayer struggles to land the plane, and I don’t want to put the full blame on him. It’s a fifty-fifty split that caused this disaster — half goes to Ayer, the other half goes to cheap action writer Kurt Wimmer. Wimmer, who is responsible for a gaggle of derivative action flicks like Equilibrium, Expend4bles, and Point Break (the remake, ugh), seemingly struggles to create an original thought, so again, I can’t fully blame Ayer for what The Beekeeper is.
The Good
Despite my lambasting of the film above, there are some silver linings. The first is that this film initially begins with heart. We see Jason Statham make a faint emotional connection with the character Elois, and that’s nice. It adds an unexpected levity to the film, but only for a moment. Having that emotional connection adds needed layers to Statham’s character that quickly evaporates when his mission turns from getting revenge for Elois, who kills herself after having her life savings drained, to just going on a rampage. When you lose that conviviality, you lose any soul that the film initially possessed — and that’s a bummer. But when we did get that heartfelt touch, I was hooked in.
Another inkling of good that Ayer and Statham brought to the screen was that the action sequences, for the most part, were choreographed very nicely. The hand-to-hand combat, which if done poorly can look tacky, were executed fluidly. I attribute that to both the experience of Statham as an actor in this genre and to Ayers veteran status of directing (mediocre) action flicks. When you go into The Beekeeper, you do anticipate high stakes fight sequences. That does get delivered. And it made me happy. Or at least as happy as one can be when watching a film that didn’t have many other redeeming qualities.
The Bad
I guess I’ll start by backtracking to the script written by Kurt Wimmer. I’m of the sound mind that The Beekeeper wasn’t going to be written like Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network script and would pack cutting dialogue, but I wanted less of the cheesy aspects that Wimmer incorporated. Did I expect there to be bee puns? Yes, yes I did. But it became nauseating when Wimmer uses those puns as a cudgel on the audience. And I can’t really believe how on-the-nose The Beekeeper was. Jason Statham is an ex-special ops soldier that was called a beekeeper and he’s also a literal beekeeper? Are we serious?
While I don’t think Ayer is a great director, he also hasn’t been given the greatest scripts, but that’s partially on him for picking the projects. He’s directed nine feature films. Only one of them has incorporated a great script, and it is End of Watch from 2012. Ayer hasn’t directed a good script in TWELVE YEARS.
Another area of The Beekeeper that completely took me out of it was the filming location. The film is supposed to be set in Massachusetts with the opening being in “Springfield, Massachusetts“. Maybe this is me being a stickler, but I live ten minutes from Springfield. I’d love for Ayer to show me where this beautiful farmland he found in Springfield is, because I’ve never seen it. This was my issue with Grant Singer’s Reptile from last year. It was supposed to be set in Maine, but was filmed in Georgia. To me, and to a lot of others, that stuff matters. When the supposed setting doesn’t match the location, I immediately get taken out interest.
Performance Report Card
Jason Statham: C
What we see in The Beekeeper is old hat from Jason Statham. At this point of his career, he doesn’t need a script. Statham just needs the “Jason Statham Blueprint” from a director. Step One: Play a mysterious character that wants to live a quiet life. Step Two: Someone in his life gets wronged and he kills those who wronged him or the person in his life. That’s the long and the short of a Jason Statham led film.
With that being said, Statham is fine in The Beekeeper. Again, it’s old hat, but sometimes old hat is not the worst. If Statham was attempting to actually act and not kill EVERYONE, I think we’d be concerned. I like to imagine that when Statham is killing federal agents, or whoever, all is right in the world. Whether it’s in the The Meg or Wrath of Man or Fast X or Fast 9 or The Fate of the Furious — you get my point, all is well when Statham is kicking ass.
Emmy Raver-Lampman: F
Much like The Beekeeper, the performance from Emmy Raver-Lampman was bad. She felt like a wet blanket acting when she’d throw out her poorly written lines that bounced off her co-stars with no chemistry. Her emotions felt way too forced that it never looked believable. Maybe this wasn’t the role for Raver-Lampman, but if that’s the case, I don’t know what is. What she showed in The Beekeeper was an inability to act.
Josh Hutcherson: C+
In the same sort of way Dylan O’Brien was charming as a vapid influencer in Not Okay, I kind of liked Josh Hutcherson’s character. He’s an unlikable antagonist, but he’s a person who carries themself with a bijou that, even in the most unlikable moments, you like. This was a role crafted perfectly for him and he did a good job with the script he was given.
Jeremy Irons: C+
When I first saw Jeremy Irons in this, I groaned. It felt like a great actor stooping for a paycheck. And while that might be true, Irons didn’t phone it in. He added a professional stoicism that did play nicely off the manic behavior of Hutcherson and Raver-Lampman. With how great of an actor he is, I don’t love seeing him in these types of roles, but at least he’s still firing on all cylinders.
Critical Reception
Currently on Letterboxd, The Beekeeper has an average score of 2.8/5 stars with over 47,000 users having seen the film. 1,898 users gave it a 5/5 star rating and 593 gave it a 0.5/5 star rating. The Beekeeper has received surprisingly decent reviews from the major critics sites. IMDB granted it a 6.7/10 rating, which is far higher than I anticipated. Metacritic gave The Beekeeper a 54%, but Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a bit of a boost with a 71% Tomatometer and a 93% Audience Score. Maybe I’m a snob. Friends have said that, and I’ll apologize to them. I apologize that I’m not a pig to the trough of lazy studio films. Sorry.
With it being so early in 2024, I’ve only logged three films for the year as 2024 releases — The Beekeeper, American Fiction and I.S.S. Let me tell you something, American Fiction and I.S.S. looked like Seven Samurai and 2001: A Space Odyssey in comparison to The Beekeeper. With that being said, it’s currently in last place on my list of 2024 releases and if I had to make an educated guess, it’d it’ll end the year closer to last than first.
