by James Coulter
The Beekeeper is not a good movie.
The Beekeeper is an awesome movie.
And that’s all I can really say about it.
Seriously, the best thing I can do to endorse The Beekeeper is tell you to go watch it. So, go watch it. Yes. Really! Go watch the movie. It’s really that good.
Honestly, I fear that saying anything about the story or characters would risk spoiling or giving away the best parts. The Beekeeper is one of those movies that’s better when you know little to nothing going into it.
That’s how it was for me. I knew nothing about this film. I didn’t see the trailer or hear about it from anyone on social media or anything. I only know it from the poster and that’s it. I even assumed it movie was a horror film. It is not a horror film. It is something surprisingly better.
Again, the best thing I could possibly do to endorse this film is tell you to go watch it. Now! Because not only is this a great film, it is a surprisingly great film.
One of those movies that Hollywood desperately needs to give it a fresh boost. A film that isn’t an umpteenth installment to a franchise that’s overstayed its welcome or a mediocre remake of a better movie. This movie is fresh, original, and unique.
The Beekeeper is a movie whose main character is a man of little words and all action. Less an actual character and more an unstoppable force of nature. A stoic, no-nonsense tough guy in the spirit of Jean-Claude Van Damme or Sylvester Stallone. A man who overcomes the odds and fells any foe who crosses his path. Someone you want to see fight, not so you can see if he can win—because you know he will—but so you can see how everyone else loses.
The Beekeeper is a movie where the villains are comedically over-the-top evil. Unredeemable, sleazy cretins without an ounce of redeemable qualities in their bone. The type of people who revel in stealing candy from babies and purses from old ladies. (Is that maybe a spoiler?) The baddest of bad guys who cross the moral event horizon in the first ten minutes and have you jeering their every action and calling for their deaths at the hands of the hero.
The Beekeeper is a movie with action. But not just any action. Most other movies, especially superhero flicks, have plenty of that. Lots of fighting and chases and explosions. But with how many and how often these movies are released, the action in them feels trite and overly played out and leaves you feeling hollow.
The action in this movie, however, is well-warranted and cathartic. Action that makes you want to leap out of your seat and yell out in ecstasy when you see it play out on screen. Fight scenes where you’re cheering on the hero as he personally introduces the bad guys to the ground and makes their new relationship quite intimate.
The Beekeeper is a movie whose premise sounds ridiculous the more you think about it. (Think Pablo Francisco’s Little Tortilla Boy comedy routine but played straight and serious.) But you don’t care because the movie takes itself so seriously that it makes you care about it. A movie where people literally crap their pants when they learn the main character is a “Beekeeper” because apparently, that’s a totes serious thing in this film.
In a time where Hollywood is spinning its wheels trying to keep dying cinematic universes alive, releasing sequel after sequel, remake after remake, The Beekeeper is a movie we need now more than ever. A movie that proves that originality is dead and that a film doesn’t need to be part of a media-spanning franchise to draw in butts to theater seats.
Go watch The Beekeeper.
Now!
