I don’t know why I thought before the film’s release that Jason Statham would deliver some serious action as the avenging beekeeper. But in the first half hour of The Beekeeper I sit in front of the screen with my mouth open and ask myself whether this film can really be serious. However, if you exchange the expectation of a tough actioner at the box office for a ticket to a Gaga fireworks display, your visit to the cinema can still surprise you.
Jason Statham as the Honey Avenger: The plot of The Beekeeper is completely absurd
Jason Statham plays Adam Clay in The Beekeeper. That’s one Beekeeper who was once an agent of the top secret “Beekeeper” organization in a previous life. Logical career change. While he used to be a fighter who put people who were damaging global society in their place, now as a beekeeper he only intervenes in the society of his hives so that the insect state functions. At least until his neighbor dies.
As we learn, the elderly neighbor lady Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad) is ripped off with a phishing scam in The Beekeeper. Telephone scammers empty all of her accounts after she gives up passwords on the supposed helpline so as not to lose the family photos on her computer.
In the fraud call center with The Wolf of Wall Street vibes, the staff celebrates the successful coup. Shortly afterwards, Eloise takes her own life. And Because the pensioner was nice to Adam Clay before, he is now not so nice to those who drove his fugitive girlfriend to suicide. Logical plot development, right?
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The Beekeeper: Jason Statham
But it gets even better: Jason Statham’s beekeeper not only reactivates his fighting talent to beat up, mutilate and blow up the call center employees of the villainous beekeeper Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson). No, Eloise’s daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman) is also the agent who follows the vigilante. Because…well, because it’s just a completely logical connection.
At the latest when The Beekeeper unpacks its biggest surprising twist two thirds of the way through, it becomes clear that the action film no longer has to make sense. That he is the Completely forswears credibility in favor of his entertainment. The twist won’t be revealed here, but it definitely puts the fool’s crown on The Beekeeper. What’s even more absurd is that the crazy plot of the film is outstripped by the dialogue.
The Beekeeper strikes with words instead of fists
After the first trailer with beekeeper John Wick, I was hoping for the kind of action from The Beekeeper that we are used to from Jason Statham: neatly choreographed fights with a few creative ideas like in The Transporter or Crank. But Unfortunately, the film is not an action masterpiece. There is too much editing in the action scenes and the fights have too few unusual ideas that go beyond throwing jars of honey.
Even the level of violence in The Beekeeper is limited: the elevator-dismembered bodies and cut-off fingers may have contributed to the highest age rating of FSK 18, but we’ve seen brutal fights from director David Ayer (Sabotage, Suicide Squad) that were much harder. Instead, The Beekeeper has a different one Unique selling point: its crazy dialogues.
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The Beekeeper also knocks sayings on the phone
Most of the time I wonder if the… “cool” sayingswhich all the Beekeeper characters constantly utter, intentionally or unintentionally funny are. You either want to frame the pithy exclamations or just shake your head in disbelief. The German dubbing certainly goes a step further to push it over the edge of absurdity. Here is a small selection:
You have to surrender to The Beekeeper to enjoy the Jason Statham film
No matter how you personally position yourself to the cursing oneliners and countless bee metaphors thrown in: without question they give The Beekeeper its flavor as grotesque poetry. When a character is called “Deputy Director Prigg” (pronounced like “Prick”), you have to give screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium) at least some intent. After last year’s work The Expendables 4 was completely scrapped, The Beekeeper overtook the action flop after just one week. Maybe it’s the humor in the dialogue?
Beekeeper villain Josh Hutcherson aptly put it this way in his interview with Moviepilot: “Perhaps it was taken to the extreme in our film. But that’s just David Ayer’s style as a director: To take something and exaggerate it.”
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The Beekeeper
Jason Staham turns out in this one Combination of combative seriousness and Gaga dialogues as a useful one-man weapon: he can say to his neighbor in one scene with his usual stone-faced expression that “no one has ever taken care of him like that,” only to explain to a few security bouncers in the next moment that he will now burn down their building.
The Beekeeper is not a classic action comedy. More of a heavy-hitting flick with completely crazy sayings – and therefore unexpectedly the craziest action film of the year.
After giving up hope for any serious conversation, I can understand the exuberant cheers in the room that accompany every new stupid phrase from Jason Statham’s lips. At the end I leave the cinema feeling like that Saw a pretty bad movie, but still had fun with it. Because after the initial disbelief, I made the only right decision: to surrender to the enticing absurdity of The Beekeeper instead of being annoyed by the film’s laughability.