The Beekeeper (2024) Review

 "I protect the hive."

-Adam Clay

When Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad) loses all of her money in a phishing scam, her tenant, Adam Clay (Jason Statham), a beekeeper, sets out to get revenge on the scammers.  The perpetrators and the FBI agents investigating the case soon find out that beekeeper has a whole other violent meaning as Clay leaves a path of destruction in his wake.

What Works:

Bottom line, I like Jason Statham.  I always enjoy his performance no matter how bad the movie is.  Sure, he pretty much only plays the same character.  He can be a little goofier or a little more serious, but it's basically the same character.  I don't mind.  It's a character I enjoy.  He's fun in this movie and I like the way he dispenses justice.  He's an action star and he's good at what he does.

The action is really fun.  This movie is rated R, so we get some creative, violent, and bloody kills.  Honestly, it's just fun watching Statham rampage on these villains, especially since the villains are really despicable and unlikable.  Watching Statham demolish these people is very satisfying and the filmmakers had some fun with it, which is what you want from a movie like this. 

Finally, the world of The Beekeeper is actually pretty interesting, even if we don't learn much about it.  We get precious little insight into the behind the scenes world of the Beekeepers.  What we do get is very intriguing and I would like to see a sequel just so we can get more of this world.  I wanted more, but I wasn't frustrated with the lack of insight.  

What Sucks:

The writing in this movie is just godawful.  The dialogue is mostly terrible.  Luckily there are some talented actors in the case that can pull off the dialogue, but not all of them can do it.  The movie jumps around erratically at times and the script feels jumbled.  I could have done a better job writing this material.  It's not like this is an overly complex story.  It's a very messy script and it didn't need to be.

The movie also has some tonal issues.  At times it wants to be a fairly grounded and realistic action movie, but at other times it wants to be a little more outlandish with its characters.  When we deal with the law enforcement characters and even Jason Statham, the movie feels pretty grounded, but then out of nowhere we get cartoon characters.   The second beekeeper and the mercenary team in the 3rd act are poorly introduced and feel like characters out of something like Kingsman.  I'm fine with having characters like that, but they need to be setup properly.  The movie needed to pick what it wanted to be and, like I said earlier, could have used some better writing.

Finally, even though most of the cast does a good job with the crappy dialogue, not all of them do.  Emmy Raver-Lampman plays the secondary protagonist, an FBI agent and the daughter of Eloise Parker, and she does a terrible job.  I haven't seen her in anything else, so maybe she's better with better dialogue, but she isn't convincing at any point during the movie.  Fortunately, most of her scenes also involve her partner, played by Bobby Naderi, who is the comic relief of the movie and is really funny, so the scenes with the FBI don't drag as much as they could have, but Raver-Lampman was not the right choice for the role.  Or the movie needed better writing.

Verdict:

The Beekeeper is pretty much exactly what I expected it to be.  It's a fun, if blunt, action movie with a typical Jason Statham performance, a fun premise, and solid action.  The writing is just terrible with a messy tone and a bad performance from one of the leads.  It's entertaining enough, but wait until it comes out on streaming.  It's not worth spending money to see it in theaters.

 6/10: Okay