What is The Beekeeper?
The Beekeeper is a new action movie starring Jason Statham, Jeremy Irons, Phylicia Rashad, and Josh Hutcherson. It is directed by David Ayers and written by Kurt Wimmer. The Beekeeper is rated R and runs just over 100 minutes.
Wait, isn’t Kurt Wimmer the guy who wrote the remakes of The Thomas Crown Affair, Total Recall, and Point Break?
Yes, but he also wrote Salt. Also, that remake of The Thomas Crown Affair rules.
What is The Beekeeper about?
It’s about a mysterious man called Adam Clay (Statham) who goes on a rampage after his sweet old neighbor lady dies by suicide when she is scammed out of her life savings by some finance bros. Clay is both a literal beekeeper, and a Beekeeper, a member of a highly secretive, probably extra-judicial group of murder experts who “protect the hive” by “balancing the system” when it goes too far.
So it’s kind of like John Wick but with bees?
It’s not NOT like John Wick but with bees.
How many bees are we talking? I have a thing about bees.
More than My Girl, less than Jupiter Ascending.
Because of the bee thing, would this make for a good double feature with Jupiter Ascending?
The Beekeeper would make an excellent double feature with The Accountant. In fact, there should be a Beekeeper-Accountant team up movie. This is all I will ever think about again.
How many times do they say the title in The Beekeeper?
Enough that if this was a drinking game, you’d be dead by the halfway point.
Does Jason Statham ever kill a person with bees?
No. But he DOES kill people with flammable honey.
Flammable hone—never mind. Does The Beekeeper ever try to make any kind of point?
Not…really. The bad guy is the perfectly named Derek Danforth and is played to sleazy cokehead perfection by Josh Hutcherson, and he is the president’s son, so there’s a chance to make a point about capitalism and greed and the institutional and moral rot of a system built on acquiring as much as possible at any cost, never mind the very real fact that phishing scams especially target elderly people, with over $3 billion in losses in 2022 from victims 60+. The problem is actually getting worse, and you probably should have like, a secret word to verify if you actually need help in an emergency, or if your elderly friends and relatives are being targeted in a scam.
But The Beekeeper backs down from making any real point out of all of this and settles for Jason Statham kicking people’s teeth in and lighting honey on fire.
Again with the honey. What is the one thing everyone should know about The Beekeeper?
Jeremy Irons does a version of the “Baba Yaga” speech from John Wick which is worth the price of admission alone. AND someone says, “To BEE or not to BEE”.
WHAT
Yep.
The Beekeeper is now playing exclusively in theaters.
Note from Jacek: In keeping with Sarah's review here, when I searched for images of "The Beekeeper" in Getty expecting to see some premiere photos, the most recent result was of Rico Heinzig, a beekeeper being sued in Germany (!!). So let's go with it. Enjoy!
