5 Things I Liked About Watching The Beekeeper
You give me a movie that’s a combination of John Wick, Desperado, The Bourne Identity, Man on Fire, Atomic Blonde, Olympus Has Fallen, and The Equalizer, and you put Jason Statham in it, and I am going to see that movie, probably on the first day it comes out.
That’s what I did with The Beekeeper, and here are 5 reasons I liked it:
1. Phylicia Rashad and the Inciting Action
Mrs. Creed probably has less than 10 minutes of total screen time in this movie, but she is so sweet and likeable, and what happens to her sucks so much that 10 minutes is all you need to be fully invested in the rest of the revenge tour. I don’t need a complicated storyline to get into these movies—“They kill John Wick’s dog” works just fine, and “They scam Phylicia Rashad” is perfect.
2. Josh Hutcherson and the Bad Guys
Oh man does the guy who played Peeta from The Hunger Games do a great job of making himself SO UNLIKEABLE. It’s a nice change of pace to have white-collar criminals instead of a gang of thugs in one of these movies. Josh and the rest of the crew do not generate any sympathy, only outrage, but at the same time they are totally believable in their greed and ridiculous behavior. Also it was set in Boston, and their company has its logo on the John Hancock building in this fictional world, which was a nice touch.
3. Emmy Raver-Lampman and the FBI
As FBI Agent Veronica Parker Emmy nails the role of doing her job well but staying one step behind the main badass so that they can cause chaos while the plot moves forward elsewhere. (Dakota Fanning just did a good job in this role in Equalizer 3.) Her partner Bobby Naderi as Agent Wiley is also a good agent, and he adds some comic relief but plays it more like a funny coworker than an actor trying to get laughs, and it works really well.
4. All the Little Casting Decisions
Jeremy Irons, Scar himself, does a more understated version of Viggo in John Wick:
Minnie Driver, always great to see in a Boston movie, easily has the “look stylishly concerned while getting phone calls” role nailed:
Megan Le gets an insane cameo in a short-but-nuts fight scene, so I have to shout out Mr. Trejo for this all-timer:
Plus all the call center employees and security details and law enforcement officers are all populated with good, solid actors.
5. Statham
Only a person who has been through all of this could be so calm and cool while Beekeeping:
After Crank, it makes sense that Statham’s pulse doesn’t seem to increase one bit while taking down a whole lot of people. The guy is a problem:
I’m OK with Statham fighting giant sharks once in a while, but I absolutely love when he fights regular people. If you like action movies, I say get to the theater so we can get a Beekeeper 2.
Did you see The Beekeeper? Do you have any movie recommendations? Let me know!