The Beekeeper (2024)

January 18, 2024 1:07 PM

In The Beekeeper, 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".
posted by TheophileEscargot (13 comments total)

That was fun! Taut old-school action movie. Thankfully not many CGI car-flips and explosions. One really good close-up corridor fight scene.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:09 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]

Meh. Statham is a known and static quantity. Just putting him in an unstoppable-dude-kills-everybody film doesn't get the job done. He'll look good and he's not going to drag it down, but he's not going to endow it with any interest, either. And this one lacked style or intricacy or competence porn to make it, well, interesting.

Also, the "funny" scenes with the FBI agents were not.

Remind your elderly parents that if they feel they're being rushed to make some kind of decision that involves their computers or money, that's a sign something is wrong and they should hang up and call you!
posted by praemunire at 8:49 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]

Also the way retail banking works is that fraud is quite easy, but everything is logged and tracked, so it's also easy to track down and reverse the fraud. So if you're a victim of fraud, do not do what the movie lady does, just contact your bank.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:16 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]

Yes, the "they'll just say old people randomly wired them all their money" defense doesn't actually work--it's more that usually the entities are super fly-by-night and overseas and the money may move on fast--but, if it's an electronic transfer, not that fast, and in this case they were companies with a U.S. presence and everything.
posted by praemunire at 7:45 AM on January 19

(This is not a criticism of the movie, though. Obviously it was not intended to be a grittily realistic portrait of bank fraud.)
posted by praemunire at 7:45 AM on January 19

What's the Statham punches people in the face count here? Double digits? High double digits?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:50 AM on January 19

Might be triple digits. Crowds of fighters are constantly politely coming up to him one by one so he can punch them in the face individually, like people seeking to be blessed by the Pope.
posted by praemunire at 10:58 AM on January 19 [9 favorites]

I think there's something interesting here where Statham is this force of nature that's moving through the world and leaving a trail of bodies as the FBI tries to catch up and stop him, but normally that would be a serial killer thriller or outright horror movie. Here Statham is as much a protagonist as the FBI agents, and that's kind of structurally interesting? This isn't technically a slasher movie, but Adam Clay is kind of a slasher.

(Also the replacement Beekeeper seems like she's from a way more fun movie with a radically different tone.)
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:14 AM on January 19 [1 favorite]

the replacement Beekeeper seems like she's from a way more fun movie with a radically different tone

Both she and the one-Beekeeper-killer and his crew (?) seem to have wandered in without explanation from, like, an 80s urban dystopia film.
posted by praemunire at 1:42 PM on January 19 [4 favorites]

Hoping they follow up with "The Beekeeper VS The Bricklayer".
posted by sammyo at 3:49 PM on January 19

Other, better taglines for the Jason Statham movie, The Beekeeper

• Find out what the buzz is about
• Time for plan bee
• All we are saying is give bees a chance
• This apiarist is going apeshit
• War and bees
• First stings first
• The next stage in drone warfare
• He’s the bee’s knees

posted by 1970s Antihero at 4:18 AM on January 20 [14 favorites]

people seeking to be blessed by the Pope.

I can see the parallel. When the time comes, having my head kicked off by the Stath is my chosen exit strategy, but you have to face up to the realities of age - he can't keep on like he's in Transporter 2 forever, a punch might be all we can really expect. God save us all from arthritis.
posted by biffa at 3:00 PM on January 20

I liked this better than the new Road House, primarily because it's stupider and a little bit weirder. Could have used even more weirdness.
posted by fleacircus at 10:06 PM on March 26