December Review: The Beekeeper (2024) (Patreon)

According to all known laws of aviation... Jason Statham doesn't fly in this one but you get the idea...

No, I didn't watch Bee Movie (2007), I watched The Beekeeper (2024) as the first of my two December reviews. As the founder of the Big Dumb Action Movie Fan Club, I had hope that perhaps The Beekeeper (2024) could be the next in a long list of quintessentially big, dumb, action movies. Alas, the film could not get out of its own way.

The Beekeeper (2024) follows a retired super secret special agent known as a "Beekeeper," Adam Clay (Jason Statham), as he seeks vengeance for an elderly neighbor who's life was destroyed after she fell for a financial phone scam. If that logline had been where the film's story began and ended it could have been great. A simple, John Wickian tale of the secretly powerful taking down a seemingly unstoppable force that preys on our society. Instead, The Beekeeper (2024) was determined to cram so much complication and explanation into itself that it becomes comical. The cast is extended out to include new angles constantly, from the tech bro responsible for it all (Josh Hutcherson), to the FBI agent who's mother was the Beekeeper's elderly neighbor (Emmy Raver-Lampman), to the ex-CIA director turned tech bro's minder (Jeremy Irons), to the literal PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (Jemma Redgrave). Not to mention all the seemingly extra-strong mercenaries, agents, and other beekeepers that the film constant throws at Statham. With the exception of Hutcherson, none of these characters needed to exist. Every time the film seems to be settling into a rhythm, allowing the Beekeeper to progress his quest for revenge, there would be a new face, name, and rank added to the mix muddling it all up.

Often films with original concepts fall into the trap of under-explaining themselves. Take Jupiter Ascending (2015), which had proper nouns you'd never discover unless you watched with subtitles on. The Beekeeper (2024) however, was victim of the opposite, over explaining its premise and world to the point of meaninglessness. The only substantive difference of The Beekeeper (2024)'s world to our real one is the existence of the Beekeeper himself. The concept of an organization that works outside the law to protect its "hive" is certainly flavored to allow the script to say bee puns ad nausium, but is not substantively different from an MI6, an IMF, or even a more militaristic Batman. If The Beekeeper (2024) would stop explaining its stock, meaningless extended cast and uncomplicated world, then Statham's relentless tough-guy hero may have had a chance to do some truly enjoyable action.

A key third of the "Big Dumb Action Movie" is the action, and here The Beekeeper (2024) delivers mixed results. The close-up brawling isn't bad, but the set pieces are close to nonexistent and almost all go the same way, in a minor explosion. None of the fighting is particularly memorable, and in the wash of Statham's many action roles his time as Adam Clay probably won't go down in history. What stands out the most is how effortless all the action feels. Statham has the swagger to be intimidating but the Beekeeper never breaks a sweat. Even John Wick bleeds on occasion, but the Beekeeper's foes never so much as get his heart-rate up.

I mentioned before that I typically love these kinds of films, a blockbuster of gritty, tough-guy fighting with some hokey one-liners and a cathartic, clear baddie. I am, for better or worse, the target audience of The Beekeeper (2024). Well, except for one key feature, I am young. The Beekeeper (2024) is incredibly clearly written by an old man. The film constantly has its characters spout how noble and correct the older characters are, and how the younger ones are corrupt and bad until their elder shows them the way. The main enemy is a tech-bro-infested scam so to a point I understand the simple dichotomy the film is trying to set up. The Beekeeper is himself retired, a relic of an old way of doing things who is in opposition to a new kind of threat that preys on the elderly, but the constant beating of the "respect your elders" drum that gives the film an immediately dated feeling. It's as though The Beekeeper (2024) is an after-school special about filial responsibility, instead of trusting its audience to understand that an older Statham is cool and competent by showing that through the action itself.

At the end of the day The Beekeeper (2024) is far from the worst film ever made. It's an ideal airplane movie, distracting and constant, but sanitized enough that the kid watching a few rows back isn't going to be scarred for life. Statham is as relentless as his foes are nondescript, and if the plot is bloated, at least it's clear. If you like a Big Dumb Action Movie, it won't completely waste your time. Not to mention all that you'll learn about beekeeping. In fact, perhaps the best review of this film comes not from me, but John Nugent of Empire, "you do have to put up with quite a lot of stuff about bees, too."

4 out of 10 Beekeeping-Related Puns