The Beekeeper Review: The Buzz Isn't Great

"The Beekeeper" takes the metaphor of bee hives for its premise and proceeds to beat that metaphor into the ground. Especially egregious is the use of the "Queen Killer" bee as a metaphor for Jason Statham's actions as Adam Clay, a man on a mission to wipe out bad actors who take money from the elderly, leaving them destitute and bereft — and in the case of the woman he knows, dead from suicide. The problem is that the metaphor is an imperfect match for what Clay is actually doing, and it confuses things more than necessary.

Of course, if you're like most people, if you go to see a Statham movie in January, it's to turn your brain off for a couple of hours. After all, there is plenty of bone-crunching action, courtesy of Statham and a whole lot of people who have no business going up against him. If you just plan to watch "The Beekeeper" for the action and don't need much of a story to satisfy you, then this movie is a perfect trip. I'm a fan of Statham, and the action is the part of the movie that feels the most pure. Still, the movie, directed by "Suicide Squad" helmer David Ayer, does have its flaws, and those are the things that make it hard to completely give in to the manic action that the movie traffics in.

"The Beekeeper" opens with Clay taking care of bees on Eloise Parker's (Phylicia Rashad) remote land. Though he's awkward and not especially talkative, she still invites him over for dinner. In fact, according to Clay, she's the only person who's ever taken care of him, making her suicide after falling for a phishing scheme hard for him to handle. Parker's daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman), an FBI agent, is understandably upset about her mother's death too, and as eager as Clay to find out why she died. The two have very different ways of going about it, however. While Clay is eager to kick ass until he reaches the top of the organization responsible for what happened, Verona is more willing to take a measured approach that employs things like the rule of law. That puts the two on something of a collision course.

If that weren't enough, more than a few people are gunning for Clay. Though Clay used his skills as part of the organization called the Beekeepers for years, he's now retired. So while he's doing what he was trained to do, he's not doing it under the Beekeepers' authorization. That causes everyone from the FBI to the CIA to the Beekeepers themselves to look for him. Of course, none of them are any match for Clay, who is the best of the best at what he does — even better than the insane Beekeeper with a giant gun strapped to the back of her truck who's sent after him.

While Clay's skills are never in doubt, there are still too many scenes woven into the movie to make sure the plot is sticking together, and that may be this film's biggest flaw. That's especially true for sequences with Verona and her partner, Matt Wiley (Bobby Naderi), as the two follow Clay's antics from afar and then up close. That said, the two are funny together, which makes the characters more palatable, if not entirely necessary.

Then there are the sequences of the people carrying out the phishing scam. While you might think they're small actors working in tiny offices, in this movie they've gone corporate with at least two offices in the Boston area, lots of people at desks, and a de-facto frontman hyping everyone up so they can steal old people's money with a lot of gusto. This defies logic, especially when Verona notes that her team hasn't been able to make much headway in finding the perpetrators of this scheme.

The phishing scam is masterminded by Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), the 28-year-old nepo baby who's just taken over as the head of Danforth Enterprises because his mother (Jemma Redgrave) has been sworn in as the president of the United States. This leaves a problem for Jeremy Irons as Wallace Westwyld, the head of Danforth Enterprises' security detail and the man in charge of keeping Derek safe. Wallace doesn't like Derek, who rides around the office on a skateboard and doesn't appear to do much but enjoy the company's perks, but he admires Derek's mother, and because of her, he does what he can to keep Derek safe. Both men, in very different ways, are funny in their roles: Hutcherson because Derek is so spoiled that it's disgusting, and Irons because Wallace is so unimpressed by Derek that his delivery drips with barely concealed sarcasm.

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Through it all though, the movie hinges on Jason Statham, and while his action sequences are excellent, he isn't given much else to do. Statham is a decent actor, and he does a good job with what he's given here. Still, his Clay, as written by Kurt Wimmer, doesn't have much of a personality beyond his ability to beat people up and care for bees. While he's starred in many movies as the same kind of character, I can't think of one who is so devoid of character traits. Statham is capable of more. Instead, all the scenes that explain anything about what he's doing are given to other people. It's understandable. After all, Clay works alone. But it still shortchanges Statham.

I can't say I love "The Beekeeper." There's way too much of Verona trying to explain things, and too much of the phishing scam too, which is a head-scratcher. Despite those elements and Statham's lack of character development, I enjoyed seeing him flex his muscles, and I was amused by the unlikely pair of Josh Hutcherson and Jeremy Irons. However, this wouldn't have been my first choice of movie to see any of these actors in. I just hope they get some better material next time.

"The Beekeeper" buzzes into theaters on January 12.