The Beekeeper hit theaters on January 11, 2024, and surprisingly, it’s already taking the cake for all the wacky action entertainment to come this year
I don’t know why I thought Jason Statham would deliver serious action as an avenging beekeeper before the movie was released. But during the first half hour of The Beekeeper, I sit in front of the screen with my mouth hanging open, wondering if this movie can really be serious. However, if you swap the expectation of a hard-hitting actioner at the box office for a ticket to a Gaga firework display, a visit to the cinema can be surprising after all
Jason Statham as the Honey Avenger: The Beekeeper’s plot alone is completely absurd
Jason Statham plays Adam Clay in The Beekeeper. He is a beekeeper who was once an agent of the top-secret “Beekeeper” organization in a previous life. A logical career change. While he used to be a fighter who put people who harmed global society in their place, as a beekeeper he now only intervenes in the society of his beehives to ensure that the insect state functions. At least until his neighbor passes away.
In The Beekeeper, we learn that elderly neighbor Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad) is being ripped off with a phishing scam. Phone scammers drain all her accounts after she gives up passwords to the supposed help hotline so as not to lose the family photos on her computer.
In the scam call center with The Wolf of Wall Street vibes, the staff celebrate the successful coup. But Eloise takes her own life shortly afterwards. And because the pensioner was nice to Adam Clay before, he is now not so nice to those who drove his fugitive girlfriend to suicide. Logical plot development, isn’t it?
(The Beekeeper: Jason Statham)
But it gets even better: not only does Jason Statham’s beekeeper now reactivate his fighting talent to beat up, mutilate and blow up the call center employees of rogue stipple-puller Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson). No, Eloise’s daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman) is also the agent hot on the vigilante’s heels. Because … well, because it’s just a completely logical connection.
By the time The Beekeeper unpacks its biggest surprise twist two-thirds of the way through, it’s clear that the action movie no longer has to make sense. That it completely forsakes credibility in favor of entertainment. The twist shall not be revealed here, but it definitely puts the crown of folly on The Beekeeper’s head. What’s even more absurd is that the insane movie plot is outstripped by the dialog
The Beekeeper strikes with words instead of fists
After the first trailer with Beekeeper John Wick, I was hoping for the kind of action we’re used to from Jason Statham in The Beekeeper: neatly choreographed fights with a few creative ideas like in The Transporter or Crank. But the movie is unfortunately not an action masterpiece. There is too much cutting in the action scenes and the fights have too few unusual ideas that go beyond throwing jars of honey.
Even the level of violence in The Beekeeper is limited: The elevator-sliced bodies and sliced-off fingers may have contributed to the highest age rating of FSK 18, but we’ve seen brutal fights much tougher from director David Ayer (Sabotage, Suicide Squad). Instead, The Beekeeper has another unique selling point: its crazy dialog
(The Beekeeper also cracks jokes on the phone)
Most of the time I ask myself whether the “cool” sayings that all the Beekeeper characters utter non-stop are deliberate or unintentionally funny. You either want to frame the pithy exclamations or simply shake your head in bewilderment. The German dubbing certainly goes the extra mile to push them over the edge of absurdity. Here is a small selection:
“For someone who has elevated shit-making to an art form, this is the Mona Lisa.”
“[He will] play the song of death on your intestinal pages.”
“[I’ll] peel the ass fiddle’s cucumber.”
“Serve bees. Or to hell with them!”
You have to surrender to The Beekeeper to enjoy the Jason Statham movie
No matter how you personally feel about the swearing oneliners and countless interspersed bee metaphors, there’s no question that they add flavor to The Beekeeper’s grotesque poetry. When a character is called “Deputy Director Prigg” (pronounced like “Prick”), you have to give screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium) at least some credit for intent.
After last year’s The Expendables 4 was a complete flop, The Beekeeper overtook the action flop after just one week. Could it be the humor in the dialogue?
Beekeeper villain Josh Hutcherson put it aptly in his interview with Moviepilot: “Maybe it was taken to the extreme in our movie. But that’s David Ayer’s style as a director: to take something and exaggerate it. “
(The Beekeeper)
Jason Staham turns out to be a useful one-man weapon in this clash of combative seriousness and gaga dialogue: with his usual petrified expression, he can say to his neighbor in one scene that “no one has ever taken care of him like this”, only to explain to a couple of security bouncers in the next moment that he is now going to burn down their building.
The Beekeeper is not a classic action comedy. Rather, it’s a hair-raising flick with completely off-the-wall lines – and thus already unexpectedly the wackiest action movie of the year.
