The Beekeeper is not allergic to action

The Beekeeper (2024)

If you like action movies with a gravelly Brit in the lead in which he kills a bunch of bad guys, then you will love Wrath of Man, … Sorry, I meant Homefront.  Wait, that’s still not right.  Redemption?  Nope.  Is it Parker?  Are these even real anymore?  Safe?  That one’s definitely made up … never mind, it came out in 2012.  I got it now, The Mechanic!  Dangit!  But I’m close.  I swear it was an occupation and I just watched it.  THE BEEKEEPER!  Finally!  I don’t know whether I should be impressed or offended at how many times Jason Statham has tricked me into a theater to watch the same thing, but I reckon he’s got me on the hook for at least 3 more.  Jason Statham is to action movies as to what Nantucket is to limericks.  The punch line is always the same, but there is always a slight variation and you are disappointed if it doesn’t end the same way.  The variation this time is that Jason Statham, whose character had a name that wasn’t worth committing to memory nor worth looking up, is a Beekeeper: a triple super secret agent whose job is to maintain order and “protect the hive”.  And that was just one of the innumerable instances of bee wordplay.  It made Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie appear subtle.  But if you are watching a Jason Statham movie for the dialogue, you have probably never read an entire chapter book.  The only reason to watch The Beekeeper is for the gratuitous action and violence, of which there is plenty.  Statham plows through this movie, intermittently mingling with ancillary characters, but mostly just destroying internet scammers that steal from old people.  This path of destruction has all of the clever twists and turns of an interstate highway, just with fewer drivers texting.  I want to dislike this movie.  It’s not good.  It is dumb, loud, and lacks creativity, but after grading a bunch of math exams over the past week, stupid and straightforward is what I needed.  The Beekeeper is a bad action movie that requires no brainpower to comprehend.  Because of its simplicity, I feel the need to give it a complex rating.  I give The Beekeeper the length of the apothem of a regular hexagon (like those that are made naturally by honeybees) out of the length of the radius of that regular hexagon.