The next review from Flicks_withNick is the 2024 Jason Statham movie The Beekeeper. The movie was released on January 12, 2024. The movie stars Jason Statham as Adam Clay, Emmy Raver-Lampman as Agent Parker, Bobby Naderi as Agent Wiley, Josh Hutherson as Derek Danforth, and Jeremy Irons as Wallace Westwyld. The movie is directed by David Ayer. As of this writing the movie has a 70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 93% Audience score.
The movie opens with Jason Statham’s character working on his bee farm, and living in a barn at an elderly woman’s house. The elderly woman is scammed out of her entire life savings, and with this, she commits suicide. Adam goes on a revenge rampage after this to bring down whoever was involved with the scam that ruined his friend’s life. After a building explosion, and many deaths, Adam is finding his way to go kill Derek, as he’s head of all the scam call centers. Derek hides behind his powerful mom, and his advisor played by Jeremy Irons. We learn Adam Clay is part of a private organization called Beekeeper. They are a top secret government organization that protects the country, whenever no one else can. Does this story sound familiar to you? To me this sounds very similar to the plot of the John Wick movie. John Wick comes out of retirement on a revenge rampage after his dog dies, he chases down a guy who hides behind his powerful dad, Wick is part of a bigger hitman organization, and kills everyone in his way up to the top.
The rest of the movie is action set pieces, and over the top action kills. I thought there were good action scenes throughout, but nothing that moves the needle, like the John Wick films. I got a little tired of all the bee references made throughout the movie. Yes I get it, he’s a Beekeeper, but it reminded me of all the ice puns by Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin.
I thought the first half of the movie was an interesting revenge rampage action movie, similar to 90’s action movies. I would have forgave the crappy dialogue, as the action scenes made it enjoyable, but in the third act of the movie, there’s a plot twist of who Derek’s mom is. At that point the rest of the movie is a loss for me, and what could have been a fun action movie, turned totally cheesy. I was very confused about Minnie Driver’s cameo, as it was a very small role, and didn’t serve the Oscar nominated actress. I’m not sure if former Oscar winner Jeremy Irons needed the extra paycheck, but kudos for him still bringing his A game.
Overall I thought this movie had potential to be a decent action movie released during the dumpurary months. Dumpurary is movies that are released in January or February, as there’s typically no tentpole films being released, and this gives the studios the best chance to have their movies sell tickets. Unfortunately with the subpar dialogue, and the terrible plot twist, this movie belongs in the action B movie club. An action B movie can be an action movie that was made cheap or fast. Think of other Statham movies like Homefront, any Gerard Butler movie, or even Mark Wahlberg’s movie Contraband (shoutout to Brewer). My wife is a huge action B movie, and always gets excited when she sees a trailer for an upcoming movie.
If you’re looking for an action packed movie, and don’t care about the plot, then I would recommend this movie.
I give this movie a 2.0/5. What is your favorite B action movie? Leave your answers in the comments!
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TravelingbeebryantRN & Flicks_withNick 
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