When the hero of your action mechanism motion-picture show is a ruthless killing machine , it assist for the sorry guys to be thoroughly , well , disagreeable . Which is to say , the more despicable the slug , blade , and chokehold cannon fodder , the good . On that front , at least , The Beekeeperspectacularly give up . The most new panorama of this quintessentially January junk is that the villains are … tele - scammers , spoil helpless old ladies out of their living ’s savings . The picture opens with one of these rig , which vomit Phylicia Rashad as the quarry of a cybercrime operation carry on from a call center that looks like a crummy rendering of the surveillance room in aJason Bournemovie . If watching a smirk Jordan Belfort case ( David Witts ) rip off a kindly retired person does n’t stoke your bloodlust , nothing will .
The sleeping giant awakened by these unscrupulous phishers is one Adam Clay ( Jason Statham ) , who harvests dearest with monk - like gracility in rural America . Statham does Zen calm like a ravenous bounder forced to reheel for a goody ; you may almost see the saliva gathering around the edges of his chiseled , bestubbled jaw as he feigns harmlessness during the plastic film ’s lone bloodless stretchability . Would it surprise anyone to learn that Clay is not just a beekeeper , but also a Beekeeper , aka the byproduct of a secret government program that trains mythic killers so unstoppable that they make the average Navy SEAL depend like an Eagle Scout ? His is not a nest you want to kvetch — or a hive you want to pump full of atomic number 82 .
Still tracing thin blue tune more than 20 year after he wroteTraining twenty-four hour period , director David Ayer has made a special form of madness this time : an imbecile and cumbersome pileup of natural action - motion picture clichés redeem only by the occasional hilarity of its cave dweller excess . The Beekeeperblatantly draw a bead on to the stool ofJohn Wick , but ca n’t muster any of the style , cunning , or pic ace personal magnetism of that franchise . It does , however , have Jason Statham buzz - sawing a twerpy data miner ’s fingers off , chaining him to a pickup truck , and then racing the truck off a drop .
After literally burn down the call centre that drove his elderly neighbor to felo-de-se , Statham ’s Clay discovers that the racket goes straight to the top . deplumate the string is a dynastic bratwurst king played by Josh Hutcherson , who literally glides into the movie on a skateboard . Linking a shady tech world to the political celestial sphere , The Beekeeperhas the delusional mania of a abstruse - state rant — at last , a butch workings - grade hero has come to drain the swampland ! At the same time , hatred for Silicon Valley robber magnate is a rather two-way position . And though many actual phishing scams are run oversea , the motion-picture show very cautiously positions its own as an American operation , sparing itself the optic of a British strongman mowing down Indian operator .
Lucius DuBignon Clay also has to evade the Rashad character ’s grieving daughter ( The Umbrella Academy‘s Emmy Raver - Lampman ) , an FBI agent saddled with some of the script ’s spoilt howlers — a flow of boilerplate sidekick - cop gag . The dialogue defeat everyone , even Jeremy Irons as the villain ’s loth , former - money methadone hydrochloride . The luckiest in the cast lumber a quick coming into court before go away without a vestige — Minnie Driver literally phones in her two - scene performance . There ’s an copiousness of bee - related paronomasia to go with the bee - related mythology : Clay is obsessed with “ protect the hive , ” until he becomes a “ queenslayer . ” And suppose which famous job of Shakespeare gets repurposed as a one - liner ?
The Beekeeperhas all the goofiness of John Wick with none of the glory ; it may be the ultimate instance yet of how Hollywood has check the amiss lessons from the success of that series . The action here is divertingly cartoonish , drift into slapstick gore , but it ’s also tightly framed and indifferently choreographed . When the cinema draw out a 2nd apiarist done up like a Ninja Turtles baddie , the gun station tussle is anticlimactical and spatially perplexing . At another point , extra can be reckon suffer around listlessly in the background as Clay effortlessly complete a whole S.W.A.T. squad in broad daylight .
Though he did n’t pen the screenplay ( that dishonor belongs to Kurt Wimmer , the man behind the keyboard of theTotal RecallandPoint Breakremakes ) , Ayer has n’t strayed far from his usual queasy admiration for cops , soldier , and those who act above or outside the practice of law to protect everyone from the really bad . What he ’s misplaced is his endowment as an image Divine — even the delimitation incoherentSuicide Squadhas some striking shots — as well as his chemical attraction for legible gunplay . Befitting its scam artist heavy , The Beekeeperboasts the production value of a money - wash schema . The CGI explosions would have looked crummy back when Statham was just model activewear . The call heart and soul resemble warehouse do like pop - up nightclubs .
The preserve seemliness of this careless pigswill is how hilarious it often is . There ’s a nonchalance to the violence that hovers on the border of mockery . When Clay first comes out of retirement , it ’s with a case shot of gasoline under each arm , as he calmly inform the headset wage slaves of his intention to blow the whole construction they ’re occupying sky - high . subsequently , he subjects another lagger of the exploitative scheme to some particularly lazy stapler torture , unenergetically slapping the guy with the twist with all the energy he might drop on , well , staple documents . The numbness is funny and appropriate — for a slayer so skilled , he ’s basically an Old Testament god , and for a movie superstar aware of how little effort this particular starring vehicle take of him .
