The Beekeeper

"Clay" (Jason Statham) has worked for an off-the-books US government programme designed to provide the ultimate security to the democratic process by providing unlimited training and resources to a group of people whose job it is is to objectively protect the system. These folks are called "beekeepers" which is lucky because our Jason has decided to spend his well earned retirement doing precisely that. He rents some space in the barn of "Eloise" (Phylicia Rashad) and one evening she invites him round for supper. He arrives to find that she has committed suicide and a cursory investigation from her FBI daughter "Verona" (Emmy Raver-Lampman) reveals she was the victim of a callous scam that wiped out not just her savings, but $2 million from a charity she chaired. Yep, you've guessed it. "Clay" decides it's time to reactivate his account and get on the trail of these people regardless of just how high up the food chain the trail of complicity and corruption leads. Statham adopts a rather curious accent throughout this totally unoriginal and derivative action thriller that gets gradually more preposterous as it goes on. Josh Hutcherson and Jeremy Irons add a little box-office to the thing, but their roles are undercooked and the former is actually pretty hopeless throughout. Some fun pyrotechnics and you wouldn't ever want to mess with "Clay" but these one-man assassination squad movies are ten a penny now and this is certainly not one of the best.

9/10 > A **violent, bloody and relentless action thriller** with a cliche but strong storyline and beautifully shot action scenes.

I watched all the The ___ movies in preparation for the most expensive, The Beekeeper. It's short, snappy and dumb. Statham kills people like usual. Just a hard-working American bloke who only ever wanted to be cared for. If you feel all Australians are goofy and should die, you'll really like the end and probably rate it higher than I did.

Dumb as a brick. I'm sorry but the story behind this is downright moronic, not helped by shallow or aimless characterisations, absurd action, empty dialogue and no real finale. In summary, a low IQ action flick that's stuffed full of empty exposition and little else.

I'm conflicted about <em>'The Beekeeper'</em>. On the one hand, it's fantastic entertainment as Jason Statham plays a brilliantly badass character - every scene with him is top, top notch. The editing, action and score are positives, though everything around those aforementioned elements is annoyingly very hit-and-miss... and I'm not sure how much the other bits affect my enjoyment. Away from the great Statham, the cast are also up-and-down. Josh Hutcherson and Jeremy Irons are decent, I think inferior actors would've done much worse so those two do do well in fairness. Sadly, for Emmy Raver-Lampman & Co. on the FBI side of the story... not the best. I mean, they're OK but kinda boring at the same time. Raver-Lampman's character is also quite lamely written, not the actress' fault of course but still. Without spoiling anything, I feel like her character should've been way more sympathetic to Clay's cause given the obvious - like, still 'do your job' absolutely but it's as if the character forgot what happened at the start of the movie. The scummy organizations are also portrayed a bit too cartoony, based on what I've seen in real life about those sorta people is that they're usually lousy losers who happen to know how to do what they do - rather than 'Gen Z' (please do forgive me for using that term *shudder*) smartasses who party 24/7 as this 2024 release shows. I'm happy with the rating I've settled on, Statham merited more though.