The Beekeeper (2024) * *

 

Directed by: David Ayer

Starring:  Jason Statham. Jeremy Irons, Josh Hutcherson, Taylor James, Minnie Driver, Phylicia Rashad, David Witts, Bobby Naderi

Jason Statham, like Sean Connery or Liam Neeson before him, plays every part with a brusque British accent whether he's playing an Englishman or an American.  His accent is part of him to the point movies don't even try to explain it anymore.   Statham usually plays curt, macho action heroes, but I don't recall any movie he's starred in previously in which he uttered fewer words.  He is a man of action anyway, and in The Beekeeper, he is a cross between Superman, James Bond, and John Wick.  

The movie itself starts out as stylish fun before it starts to feel like a John Wick retread, with John, er, Adam Clay (Statham), taking out half-a-dozen heavies at a time through heavily choreographed thrashings.  He shoots people multiple times when really one shot would be sufficient, but then pounds others with Ivan Drago-like power.  Don't his hands hurt after punching guys over and over?  And don't get me started on the backpack he carries around, which seems to be able to hold whatever uniform or clothing he needs, as well as seemingly unlimited rounds of ammo.  

Who is Adam Clay?  He's a beekeeper, tending to his bee farm quietly and without fuss.  He rents space in a barn from his neighbor (Rashad), who according to Adam, "is the only person to ever take care of me,"  Soon, Adam's friend is a victim of a computer phishing scam which depletes all of her financial assets, leaving her broke.  She commits suicide, and soon Adam is on the hunt for who is responsible.  The FBI says they are unable to locate the offices of the scam artists, but Adam finds it in roughly 24 hours and burns it to the ground.   Turns out, Adam was once a member of The Beekeepers, an organization called upon to protect America when I assume the FBI, military, or CIA can't.  When Adam speaks, he does so in terms of bees, a la Chauncy Gardiner from Being There.  So he is now a cross between Superman, Bond, Wick, and Chauncy.  

It turns out there are other offices running these cons, run by a Boston-area office with spoiled rich brat Derek Danforth (Hutcherson), who spends his days getting massages and barking orders at his subordinates.   He is the son of the President, not of Danforth Industries, but of the United States.  Derek is watched over by Wallace Westwyld (Irons), the former head of the CIA who is doing a favor for Derek's mother and understands exactly how deadly Clay is.  His healthy respect for Clay doesn't make him a standard villain, but someone whom Clay may respect also.  Their only scene together reveals more layers than expected.

The Beekeeper has various scenes in which characters stop and explain what the Beekeepers are and what they are capable of doing.  Then, we see it, and we've seen it before.  How exactly does Adam or John Wick for that matter train themselves to fight off all of these people attacking them?  Adam (or Wick) are not real people.  They are video game characters which kill off the nameless bodies coming at them, and like a game, these baddies then disappear from the screen only for more to come at them.   The hero is as tireless as the drones who engage him.  The issue is:  This is all tiresome now.  Just shoot up people and places and then escape to fight another day.  Yawn.