The Beekeeper
MGM Distribution | Release Date: January 12, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
18
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Original-CinThom ErnstJan 12, 2024
The Beekeeper is mindless, overblown nonsense timed perfectly to drag us from a haze of prestige films and an awards bait stupor. Read full review
80
The TelegraphEd PowerJan 10, 2024
For all the stodginess, the action is dynamic – often shockingly gory – and enthusiastically marshalled by David Ayer. Read full review
80
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiJan 10, 2024
100% pure Statham, and after many years where audiences had to settle for the diluted variety it’s a welcome return to form. Read full review
80
ColliderNate RichardJan 10, 2024
It's an action movie with plot beats that might make certain audience members raise their eyebrows and scoff, but it will have Statham devotees smiling, laughing, and cheering in their seats. Read full review
78
PolygonPete VolkJan 10, 2024
The movie improves with distance. Days later, I mostly remember the good times The Beekeeper offers: Jason Statham beating on fools who deserve beating, bringing the pain in exciting and inventive ways, all while delivering bee-themed one-liners. Sometimes, that’s all you want from a bee movie. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 12, 2024
The Beekeeper is the purest stupid fun I’ve had in a movie theater since “F9: The Fast Saga” in 2021. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJan 11, 2024
It's a real shame that "The Beekeeper" isn't the righteous trash masterpiece that it keeps threatening to turn into. There's a great pop hit in here somewhere—probably one that focused exclusively on Adam and the awful people he's going after. But the film is scattered and annoyingly glib at times. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJan 10, 2024
By Cinema Stathama considerations, The Beekeeper is a masterpiece – the best B(ee)-movie of this cold-hearted season. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsJan 16, 2024
By ordinary metrics, it leaves everything to be desired. But, 'The Beekeeper' understands that better than anyone, and occupies the 'Fast & Furious'-esque niche of action filmmaking in a way that's arguably genuinely brilliant. Read full review
70
UproxxMike RyanJan 12, 2024
This movie, hot damn. It just does not care. I can’t help but respect all of this. Please create an honorary Oscar for The Beekeeper. Read full review
65
SlashfilmBen PearsonJan 10, 2024
There are plenty of enjoyable moments here, and audiences who want nothing more than a Jason Statham beat-'em-up will surely be satisfied. But this movie's narrative and creative stumbles put into stark relief what we've known for 10 years now: The "John Wick" formula might seem easy to replicate, but to make an equally legendary action film is much, much harder than it looks. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeGlenn KennyJan 10, 2024
Director Ayer, whose career took off when he wrote 2001′s “Training Day,” has frequently attempted to create Action Movies That Matter (the stressful 2014 World War II picture “Fury,” for one); this is absolutely not one of those. He tackles this assignment without much self-seriousness but doesn’t seem keen to embrace its silliness quotient, either. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 10, 2024
Statham, 56 and fit enough to bring the fury, benefits from impressive stuntwork — his own, his double’s and the legion of stunt men/minions he’s meant to stab, kick, punch and plow his way through. And everybody can toast the breathless editing from Geoffrey O’Brien, who should be on everybody involved’s Christmas card list after this. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreJan 15, 2024
The Beekeeper takes a Mad Libs approach to moviemaking. Read full review
60
IGNEmma StefanskyJan 11, 2024
A semi-confusing script and heavy-handed direction from David Ayer muddle the proceedings, but enough inspired pizazz and Statham’s earnest delivery of lines like “I protect the hive” just barely bring it all home. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeJan 11, 2024
There’s a grubby, late-night appeal to his dialled-up trash aesthetic and The Beekeeper mostly works because of it. Bee prepared for a sequel. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyJan 11, 2024
There’s a half-hearted plot twist that doesn’t land. Mostly, however, this is a film about explosions and bad guys getting their comeuppance. Fast cuts and more than 50 credited stuntmen and stuntwomen make for, well, buzzy spectacle. Read full review
60
The Daily BeastNick SchagerJan 10, 2024
A beat-‘em-up whose competent fight sequences are ultimately overshadowed by its unintentional humor. Read full review
60
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiJan 10, 2024
The Beekeeper is an engaging ride, and once the action starts it never lets up. Read full review
58
The Film StageConor O'DonnellJan 10, 2024
Any eye-rolling quips or comic-book acidity is generally outweighed by this fundamental understanding: the best special effect your action film can deploy is Jason Statham kicking people. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithJan 11, 2024
The Beekeeper, which is both a bee movie and a B movie, falls in the same category as many other Statham-versus-everyone action thrillers: not very good, yet enjoyable enough. Read full review
50
Rolling StoneDavid FearJan 11, 2024
By the time a final showdown snaps your suspension of disbelief and suggests there are bigger hornet’s nests to kick, The Beekeeper has crept out of the realm of pulpy B-movie thrills and falls just short of being a Bee movie dabbling in deep-state paranoia-mongering. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJake CoyleJan 11, 2024
It can be divertingly bonkers, but ends up a rather grim and slipshod “John Wick” ripoff. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 10, 2024
The Beekeeper is the best kind of bad movie — which is to say, it’s the sort that puts entertainment ahead of pretentiousness, embracing the laughter sure to accompany such an unapologetically stupid, ultra-violent premise. Read full review
50
The New York TimesAmy NicholsonJan 10, 2024
Statham excels as a straight-faced goof. Between his glower and the movie’s high-quality production values, this brain cell-destroying schlock resembles an earnest drama. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 10, 2024
Watching the bullet-headed action star take down squads of government agents and thuggish mercenaries alike, mostly while unarmed, is fun enough. Probably even more so in Imax. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJan 10, 2024
What this movie has — courtesy of Kurt Wimmer’s upwardly mobile script — is a rickety ladder that it climbs from comically low stakes up to the highest levels of power. Read full review
45
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerJan 16, 2024
This inane new Statham vehicle, The Beekeeper—directed by Suicide Squad auteur David Ayer and written by Expend4bles’ Kurt Wimmer—manages to be moderately stimulating, all things considered, though it suffers from the filmmakers’ inability to allow it to be as inane as it clearly should be. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJan 15, 2024
It’s Statham’s movie – a brisk, slick, ultra-violent action onslaught that yet again demonstrates his ability to redeem just about any old tosh. Read full review
40
Little White LiesHannah StrongJan 12, 2024
What we have is a generic addition to an already oversaturated genre – one that doesn’t even have the sense to make use of Statham’s often underutilised comedic talents. Read full review
40
EmpireJohn NugentJan 10, 2024
Statham is as gruffly convincing as he usually is (though it’s 20 minutes before he’s even allowed to kick any ass), but the action scenes are horribly inconsistent: fine in the hand-to-hand stuff, sloppy elsewhere. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 9, 2024
In The Beekeeper, as has been the case with pretty much anything Statham has done in the past half-decade, the actor is on hand to collect a paycheck in exchange for bringing a recognizable name to the proceedings. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJan 10, 2024
If the formulaic film ever finds its audience — and it’s all too clear that there’s a market for this kind of slickly produced, hindbrain pulp — the best that can be said for it is that the ending (devised by screenwriter Kurt Wimmer) is perfectly poised for The Beekeeper 2. Read full review
25
CNNBrian LowryJan 11, 2024
The star’s latest film should attract flies, all right, not with honey, but rather the stale aroma of its inane premise. Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubManuel BetancourtJan 10, 2024
The Beekeeper feels stale and rather one-note. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineDerek SmithJan 10, 2024
It’s not unlike a partially completed sketch whose occasional flashes of color only serve to remind us how incomplete and lazily constructed the rest of it is. Read full review
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