Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
The Beekeeper comes from director David Ayer and was written by Kurt Wimmer — both have mixed records in terms of quality action movies, but Kurt Wimmer didn’t write the bad first version of Suicide Squad and David Ayer had nothing to do with the Wimmer-penned Total Recall remake. This movie’s script isn’t exactly what I would call particularly clever even in the realm of ridiculous action movies, but the direction is actually a step above much of the shlock out there.
The movie stars Jason Statham as the mysterious ‘Adam Clay’ who is the member of a secret organization of hyper competent and super well-funded mega-spies, which is nothing new of course — in True Lies they had their own ‘real’ spy agency, and here it’s the theoretical organization of ‘Beekeepers’ that protects the ‘hive’ that is the USA. The metaphor is strained to the point of incredulity, but in a way that’s part of the charm because it’s so patently ridiculous.
Adam lives near the country home of older saintly Black lady Eloise (Phylicia Rashad), who is apparently the only one who’s ever cared about him. But after Eloise gets hacked by a sophisticated phishing organization, Adam decides to get revenge and destroy the entire company and everyone in it all the way to the top.
At the same time, Eloise’s daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman) is an FBI agent trying to figure out what’s going on along with her hapless partner Matt (Bobby Naderi), who is little more than ballast for her own story. Again, ‘story’ is as thin as might be expected, but the film trades heavily on the very fun and decently choreographed bloody action scenes as Statham mows through dozens of people without a scratch on him.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
The man in charge of all the phishing garbage is Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), a real piece of work, but he’s connected and rich — and he’s being protected by former CIA chief Wallace (Jeremy Irons). Jeremy Irons is so immediately fun here in an understated way, that when he talks about all-powerful ‘beekeepers’ that will definitely kill Derek, it’s both funny and somewhat believable.
There is the barest attempt at a ‘message’ here about corrupt institutions, but the movie isn’t anywhere near smart enough to really say anything interesting, and potentially might be saying something far more insidious without realizing it. But I can’t really give it that amount of credit. The movie is fun because of the increasingly silly action scenes where everyone but Statham is incompetent (or nearly so), and the cadre of over the top side characters that make their mark.
Sadly, although Emmy Raver-Lampman is in much of the movie, her character is written very quietly and low-key competent that it ultimately makes her muted in the loudness of the rest of the movie. There are also a few pretty flat performances of some smaller characters, and Jason Statham doesn’t get to show nearly enough snark for what he’s capable of — but he’s as convincingly a badass as ever.
This is hardly the best action movie out there, but as a January fun, dumb time, you could do a lot worse. Just try not to see it with anything other than measured expectations and it’s likely you won’t be disappointed.
The Beekeeper has a run time of 1 hour 45 minutes, and is rated R for strong violence throughout, pervasive language, some sexual references and drug use.
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