The Beekeeper ★★

I THINK I’m allergic to bees.

Not too much. I don’t blow up like the Elephant Man, but I do get a little woozy when I’m stung.

They say it’s not the actual sting that causes the problem but the immediate reaction you have where you slap or brush the bee away and the poison is freed.

Anyway, all this preamble serves two purposes.

Firstly, it is in keeping with the script of David Ayers’ new action film The Beekeeper which constantly refers to bee analogies.

But secondly, and more importantly, it’s helping me delay writing about the film which, along with Night Swim, is one of the weakest major releases so far in 2024.

Ayers and his star Jason Statham have made some good movies, but they’ve also made some average ones and this is definitely the latter.

In Hollywood this year has commenced as 2023 finished in terms of the new over-done trope of action films whereby an average Joe turns out to be a former assassin/CIA agent/special forces whatever.

This time it’s taken even further and sillier with Statham playing a beekeeper who was formerly a secret agent knows as a ‘beekeeper’ because his job was to ‘protect the hive’.

Whether the ‘hive’ is meant to be the particular agency or the government or society as a while is never really landed on throughout the film which instead features mostly bland, heavily edited action sequences and ridiculous plotlines including one reveal that is frankly plain dumb.

Josh Hutcherson makes a decent, snivelling millennial villain but Jeremy Irons is wasted.

Cue the bee analogy headline.

Watched at the cinema