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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nLast week I wrote about \u201cMean Girls\u201d and the problem of having seen a version of the movie before, which made it too familiar and predictable. I meant it in a very literal sense \u2013 there was a 2004 movie called \u201cMean Girls,\u201d written by Tina Fey, with basically the same characters and story (though no musical numbers, those were a nice addition). Now I\u2019m making the same complaint about \u201cThe Beekeeper,\u201d but in a figurative sense. There is no other movie called \u201cThe Beekeeper\u201d that resembles this movie or involves the same people, nor is this movie technically based on any other intellectual property. And yet you\u2019ll know what I mean when I say that I\u2019ve seen this movie so many times before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jason Statham plays Adam Clay, a drifter given work by the kind Eloise (Phylicia Rashad). Online scammers take every penny of Eloise\u2019s savings, including over $2 million earmarked for charity. Eloise\u2019s FBI agent daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman) gets involved and has Clay arrested. He complies with the arrest, but this is the kind of character that only complies because he cares about Verona\u2019s peace of mind and not because he is actually conceding power. He\u2019s soon released, and while he has no hard feelings toward Verona, he does want to shut down the scammers permanently. They don\u2019t know it, but they\u2019ve made an enemy of the world\u2019s deadliest assassin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clay starts out burning down the call center where the scammers worked, but of course the path of destruction doesn\u2019t stop there. He works his way up to the highest levels of the operation, inching ever-closer to\u2026 \u201cmastermind\u201d isn\u2019t really the word here, but figurehead Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson). Danforth has the help of his powerful mother (Jemma Redgrave) and a former CIA director (Jeremy Irons), who\u2019s smart enough to have a great deal of respect for Clay. Verona is assigned to bring down Clay for his unlawful actions, and she\u2019s really good at figuring out where he\u2019s going to go next. She\u2019s not good at knowing what to do with this information once she figures it out, but no one else on the law enforcement side is doing any better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems the bad guys kicked a hornets\u2019 nest and angered a guy that was once assigned to protect the hive that is the United States. Also he had an amateur beekeeping\/honey collecting operation in the barn where he lived. The movie makes every bee joke and metaphor it can muster, because the beekeeping gimmick is the only thing separating this movie from hundreds like it where an apparent nobody or everyman turns out to be an unstoppable action hero. Ten years ago, Liam Neeson was the face of this genre, though it\u2019s not like Hollywood hasn\u2019t been mining this formula for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Beekeeper\u201d doesn\u2019t do too much to stand out from the swarm, but it\u2019s enjoyable at times. Statham is his usual charming self, some of the action set pieces are pleasingly implausible, and the scummy bad guys are fun to punish. If you\u2019re looking for nothing more than a movie where the most fun comes from speculating if the villain of the moment will get gunned down or blown up, this might be the movie for you. I\u2019m looking for something where I can get a little more invested in the characters and story, which is why I can\u2019t recommend it. I know this movie probably wants me to give it the next letter grade up, but I\u2019m afraid it will have to settle for a\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Beekeeper\u201d is rated R for strong violence throughout, pervasive language, some sexual references and drug use. Its running time is 105 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver Last week I wrote about \u201cMean Girls\u201d and the problem of having seen a version of the movie before, which made it too familiar and predictable.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":59107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[2626],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59108,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59106\/revisions\/59108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}