150 Word Review: 'The Beekeeper' (2024)

Buzz kill

Photo: Amazon MGM Studios

The Beekeeper has two things going for it: glowering bone-breaker Jason Statham, who is aging like a well-cared-for catcher's mitt, and a cast of supremely hateable bad guys, including Jeremy Irons as a white-collar weasel.

Phylicia Rashad plays a kindly old lady whose life savings are drained by internet scammers. The despair is too much for her.

But these conmen picked the wrong senior citizen to screw over. Rashad's grandma was besties with Jason Statham's character, a humble beekeeper who, unbeknownst to anyone, is also a former Beekeeper, a member of a secret organization of super-spies tasked with serving justice while muttering tortured bee metaphors.

Director David Ayer's The Beekeeper is a blood-and-guts revenge cartoon with a simple moral message: elder abuse is a killable offense. The violence isn't as elegant as in the balletic John Wick movies, but no one can kick a merc in the chest like Statham.

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Random Ranking

Top 5 Jason Statham Movies

5. 'The Transporter' (2002)

4. 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' (1998)

3. ‘Spy' (2015)

2. TIE: 'Crank' (2006), 'Crank: High Voltage' (2009)

1. 'The Wrath of Man' (2021)

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