The Beekeeper review: Statham delivers a braindead Bee-movie

The Beekeeper is a Stath-speare banger; shamelessly, giddily batsh*t bonkers and silly, with some of the worst dialogue you’ll ever hear and brawny violence. “I think I’ll take… to bee.”

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. Yet, since 2005, arrogant morons have continually slighted Jason Statham’s fits-all-movies hardman and paid the price in fear, if not blood.

In Crank, Chev Chelios survived a 5,000ft fall through the clouds so he could break a gangster’s neck in mid-air; in Furious 7, he murdered a member of Dom Toretto’s family, perhaps the most hallowed of blockbuster sins. In other words, vengeance is certain to have a sting when you attract the ire of a wild Stath.

So, The Beekeeper may be the ultimate representation of the star’s brand of last-resort justice – but despite what the poster suggests, it’s not about the metamorphosis of a hive of bees into the actor (or the other way around). This is a small-scale (until it isn’t), hilariously dumb actioner straight out of the ’90s playbook – and it’s destined to be enjoyed alongside your dad with an ice-cold schooner.

The Beekeeper is boomer-nip vengeance porn

A montage covering the voracious, intensive history of bees (this film is a part-seminar on melittology) segues into our first face-to-face with Adam Clay (Statham), a quiet beekeeper who relishes solitude as much as the soft-spoken, maternal comfort of his employer, Eloise (Phylicia Rashad).

As he tends to the bees, Eloise’s laptop is jolted by a pop-up warning her of dangerous malware. She calls the number on the screen, and she’s quickly put through to a jovial operator who’s keen to fix her issues remotely. One blackout later, every penny in her digital possession is gone without a trace, and she’s so tormented by guilt and self-loathing that she kills herself that same night.

The FBI doesn’t have any answers – but when the law fails, you have the Beekeepers, a confidential extra-governmental agency dedicated to “protecting the hive”, aka restoring balance to civilization when traditional checks and balances can’t get the job done. As luck would have it, Clay is armed with that very specific set of skills, and he quickly, brutally takes matters into his own hands.

The villains? Parades of scumbags emptying clueless people’s accounts, and Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson, chewing every ridiculous line he’s given), the troubled playboy son of a powerful woman who spends his days smoking his “carnival ride” and snorting blow, skateboarding around the office, promising crypto and NFTs to girls who look at him, and withdrawing an endless supply of money from his “metaverse meth labs.”

Phishing scams are a very real and prolific threat, but the Stratton Oakmont-inspired, teeth-gnashing sketch of call centers is totally absurd and dates it as severely as Y2K paranoia. However, the sheer lack of nuance is commendable and effective in a turn-your-brain-off sort of way: it’s pure wish fulfilment for your cold-call-hating parents, as anyone who picks up a phone is treated as an A-grade b*stard who’s already signed their death warrant.

Statham is a one-man killing machine

I let out a guttural groan upon seeing Kurt Wimmer’s name in the opening credits; he also wrote and produced Expend4bles, perhaps the most abominable action picture of the decade. Predictably, the script is funny at best, and laughable at its worst. The script occasionally tries to deliver some wise musings – “Being old can be a lonely thing… reach a certain age, and you cease to matter,” Clay says – but they’re brief and eye-rollingly trite.

It’s almost as if The Beekeeper was a randomly generated title that necessitated a screenplay full of bordering-on-insufferable puns and one-liners (“Who the f**k are you, Winnie the Pooh?” and “You kicked the beehive… and now we have to reap the whirlwind” stand out), plus a line that should stand the test of time as the worst of the year: “Dude, bees are interesting little sh*ts!”

MGM

Pacing isn’t a major issue across its tight 105 minutes, but the film regularly insists on pivoting to two FBI agents (Emmy Raver-Lampman and Bobby Naderi), one of whom has a personal connection to Clay’s pursuit – and their conversations are so dull (and redundant – they’re basically narrators) you’ll be drifting off into the memory of the poor sod Clay just murked before he comes back.

David Ayer’s direction and Statham’s physicality are the stars here, with the film (eventually) kicking into a watchable sequence-to-sequence rhythm of tactile, propulsive action that’s smartly cut and well-choreographed (props to Gabriel Beristain, who steps beyond workmanlike, televisual cinematography when it comes to the set pieces).

It doesn’t scrimp on bloodshed, either; while bolstered by CGI, the kills here are often jaw-droppingly gnarly, including a man being cut in half by an elevator and a mano a mano fist-and-knife fight that ranks among the best in the star’s long list of brawls. John Wick and Nobody’s Hutch Mansell are defined by how much they get hit and keep moving forward – but sometimes, seeing a god-mode hero who’s impervious to all harm mowing down hapless bad guys is all you need to have a good time.

The Beekeeper review score: 3/5

Hell hath no fury like a Stath scorned, and The Beekeeper is another rollicking dose of Bee-movie carnage.

The Beekeeper hits cinemas on January 12. Check out the rest of our TV & movies coverage here.