The Beekeeper (2024)

 

Genre: Action/ Thriller

Time: 1h 45mins

Director: David Ayer

Quick Summary: 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."

It's at the point when you see that Jason Statham is in a film, and you know exactly how the film will play out. This is no expectation. I'm starting to think they just design these films especially for him to be cast in the main role. 

If you know Jason Statham films, then you know what type of action this film has. Over the top, brutal, with lots of frantic camera movements, with Jason singlehandedly fist-fighting through a bunch of men. While this sounds like a complaint, it's actually not since it was the only thing really keeping my interest. Some of them were a bit odd. This one woman randomly pulls out a machine gun that is on the back of her truck and begins shooting everything in a gas station. 

I can't fault anyone for their acting as honestly, they were all pretty good, as well as their characters. All aside from one. Agent Veronica has to be one of the most poorly, infuriating, obnoxious written characters I have ever laid eyes on. In fact, she ruined any scene she was in. If she wasn't making a terrible decision, she was saying some of the harshest lines I have ever heard. 

 As for the story, It wasn't bad. To be fair to it, I was interested from the get-go. The problem is, that it hits the same notes that every single revenge-styled film does, and while that isn't bad sometimes to keep inside the box, this just falls apart in various other places like the pacing. This was slow. It took a long while for things to actually start happening, and by the half-hour mark, I was almost asleep. The other thing is, this feels off. It wasn't fully done in some places as it seems to just cut at surprising moments, especially at the end. As for the dialogue, half the time it was sentences that felt like they were cut down to be as short as possible, so a lot of the time conversations sounded pretty strange. Maybe they were also fed up with this?

Though I will say it was pretty amusing to me to listen to all the bee puns and facts crammed in. Honestly, It was like every ten minutes someone mentioned something about a bee. Shame we didn't see any bee action.

This is okay, it's watchable. I'll mostly praise this for its action scenes, but the non-action is where it falls flat. 

6/10

"Adam Clay: There are laws for that. Until they fail. Then they've got me."

"Lazarus: To bee or not to bee? Isn't that the bloody question?

Adam Clay: I think I'll take to bee."

"Anisette: You've been a busy bee. You're supposed to be retired"