In the final weeks and days of 2024, I played a serious game of catchup with movies I wanted to see but never got around to watching. One of those, Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper, ended up being one of the most fun experiences from the entire 2024 movie schedule, as wild as that sounds., and I’m bummed I slept on it for so long.
Though our official review of the David Ayer-directed action flick called it “too stupid to be great, too grim to be properly entertaining,” I found myself laughing, pumping my fist in the air, and having a hell of a time. That said, I think that while it’s not the best action movie ever made, The Beekeeper is a fun and thrilling experience that a lot of people are sleeping on, and I think that needs to change.
I Expected This To Be A Simple Revenge Thriller
When I saw The Beekeeper’s first trailer, I thought the movie would be like a lot of Jason Statham’s action movies from the past decade-and-a-half, in that it would be a rather simple revenge-focused thriller where he kicks a lot of ass. And yeah, that is somewhat true, considering the movie follows Adam Clay (Statham), a highly skilled assassin-turned-beekeeper who goes on a violent rampage, but it was still a ton of fun.
This action thriller starts like a lot of other similar movies from the genre with Clay getting back into the game after his only friend in the world is scammed out of millions of dollars before killing herself, but that’s just the beginning. I even thought that Clay showing up at a call center and burning it to the ground would be about as crazy as the movie would get. Oh, how it has never felt so good to be so wrong.
Instead, The Beekeeper Is An Over-The-Top Action Spectacle That Goes To The Top Of The U.S. Government
I love action movies that get more and more over the top as the story unfolds and reveal that what initially felt like something small is in reality part of something much larger. In the case of The Beekeeper, the call center scheme that kicked off the story is actually part of a massive nationwide scheme involving high-ranking members of the United States government.
This progression of the story (which reaches some wild heights in the final act) creates an over-the-top action spectacle that is a whole lot of fun to watch. Was it ridiculous watching Jason Statham come up with unique ways of killing people (more on that next) or listening to all kinds of “beekeeper” puns through it all? Yeah, but David Ayer’s ability to find a proper balance of comedy, action, and explosive set pieces ended up creating an exciting and thrilling experience.
I Can’t Get Over Adam Clay’s Inventiveness And How He Doesn’t Rely On Guns
One thing I really love about The Beekeeper is the fact that Adam Clay doesn’t always rely on guns to do his dirty work. Sure, he shoots a henchman or two by the time everything is said and done, but he mostly maims, kills, and blows up all kinds of bad guys in highly inventive ways.
From waltzing into a giant scamming operation with cans of gasoline, explosives, and a device that’ll set it all off to tying a low-level thug to his truck and then driving it off a bridge to giving audiences one of the best elevator scenes since the iconic fight in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, there’s a lot to love here.
As much as I love seeing action heroes like John Wick fire round after round into a seemingly never-ending line of goons, seeing Clay come up with different and unique ways to kill, or at least maim bad guys was a whole lot of fun.
The Chain Of Increasingly Wild Villains Was So Much Fun
I’ve watched my fair share of action movies over the years, and though I’ve seen something like this play out hundreds of times, I never get tired of watching a hero work their way up the food chain of increasingly wild villains. Much like a video game where the player works their way through thugs, stage bosses, and level bosses before reaching the top of the pecking order of whatever criminal outfit they’re fighting, The Beekeeper keeps making the next villain look so much worse than the one before.
You’ve got low-level guys like Mickey Garnett (David Witts) at the call center, Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson) as the CEO of Danforth Enterprises (the company behind the call center scheme), and even high-ranking members of the United States government that Clay has to take on before his mission is complete. And the nameless henchmen have a similar trajectory, as we go from security guards to mercenaries, to outrageously-dressed assassins between each of the bosses.
The Beekeeper Ending Has Me Hungry For More
Spoiler Warning: The final section contains major spoilers for The Beekeeper. If you’ve yet to watch the movie and don’t want the ending spoiled, read no further!
As soon as The Beekeeper ended, I immediately got online to find out if David Ayer was making a sequel. Though I found an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment where the Suicide Squad director alluded to further exploring the whole “beekeeper” mythology (Adam Clay is a retired assassin from a government program known as the Beekeepers), I haven’t been able to find any concrete details about what a sequel will be about or if it will happen.
After watching Clay pretty much help reveal the top-secret program to people outside the intelligence community, save the President of the United States by killing her son before he could kill her, and then escape more Secret Service agents than have ever been in one place at one time, I need to see more. I honestly think that this could turn into the next Jason Statham action franchise, one that’s full of as many puns as unique kills.
The Beekeeper, though not my favorite 2024 action movie, was one hell of a spectacle and one I won’t soon forget. And while I wait for more news on a possible sequel (or sequels), there are plenty of kickass options on the 2025 movie schedule to hold me over.