PREMISE
One man’s brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as “Beekeepers”.
THE GOOD STUFF
PROPER STATHAM USAGE- Unlike something like the Meg 2, A good Jason Statham action flick has way more hand-to-hand combat than shootouts or CGI and gets rather creative with the types of ways that The Stath can beat the f*** out of folks. To his credit, director David Ayer understands that the best way to shoot a Jason Statham action scene is to have him clear rooms of guys instead of the more 1v1 type of things that other action directors have him doing. There’s a graceful fluidity in how The Stath does that kind of a particular fight scene, and this movie is an all-out showcase of room clearings.
As many movies I’ve reviewed that involved Statham I end up saying the same thing all the time and it’s worth saying here once more. He is the definitive action star of our generation. He’s the only guy doing action movies in this fashion as consistently as he does. And he does them damn well.
VILLIANS- This is a very satisfying movie to watch in the sense that this is a film that takes its time to really making the villains hateable.
More so than the typical bad guy who wants to blow up the world / steals a lot of money / victimizes the protagonist’s family in some way etc., etc., etc., THE BEEKEEPER is a film that shows tech bros stealing money from innocent people while ordering complicated coffee drinks and listening to the chimes of singing bowls. This movie has a particular vendetta and is extraordinarily petty in the portrayal of what modern-day villains truly look like sound like and act like. Every single villain that we see in this movie is completely repugnant. That helps when your protagonist is an unstoppable killing machine.
THE BAD STUFF (or good depending on who you are)
THE SYMBOLISM OF BEES- If you are in any way self-aware of the type of movie you are watching then the consistent references to the functionality and psychological understanding of bees (that the supporting characters tend to go on long monologues about) will make this one of the funniest movies that you’ve seen in months.
But if you are not possessing that self-awareness…then this is going to be aggravating to you. You’re going to roll your eyes at least 10 or 15 times during this movie and it’s completely going to take away from your experience. The movie does its absolute best in trying to poke fun at what it’s doing. But that might not be enough for some people.
THE UGLY STUFF
AMBITION- The one thing keeping this movie from being the best version of itself is a proper villain. Action movies like this tend to go one of two ways: either there’s a final boss villain, or there’s a final boss organization to directly confront. Unfortunately, this movie tends to go towards the latter, and it’s a bit too ambitious and the film completely loses its coherency.
Damn shame too. It was a plus up until this point
**************
Look, folks, we have to understand that there’s a difference between a movie that Jason Statham is in… And JASON STATHAM MOVIES, okay?
The best way I can explain it is this: action movies of this caliber are symbolically equivalent to candy bars. They are something to be consumed to have fun with, satisfy a particular craving you may have, and not be treated as something that should fully sustain you.
-The heavy Oscar-type flicks of the world are like main-course-type meals…
-These superhero flicks are like decadent desserts…
-The Star-driven comedies are like big salads…
-And the genre flicks (typically in the action and horror genres) are like grocery store candy bars.
Sometimes you get these nasty Zero bars and you’re justifiably repulsed, sometimes you get a plain old boring Hershey bar, and it’s whatever…
But sometimes…you get a Snickers bar. Something that feels a little bit more substantive than almost everything in its field. This is that.
THE BEEKEEPER is in theaters now.
