[Movie Review] The Beekeeper
I'm convinced AI wrote this absolute bonkers slugfest.
OVERRALL VIBE: “Very little setting, stunted 2D characters, and thin plot but good for background watching while cleaning the house.”
MOVIE SCORE: 35/100 Points
POINT SYSTEM: See THIS POST on The Littlefield Scale
The Littlefield Scale Explained
The Ten Values to “The Beekeeper”(2024)
6/10 Theme: There IS an overall theme, but it’s poorly integrated into the storytelling and only within the First Act. The ‘main theme’ (because it seems there are a few) is that there’s a top-secret agency that works outside the confines of government bureaucracy and there’s a loose cannon from that organization running amok, also, as kind of a Shakespearean aside: defrauding old people is super bad mmkay? I love how there’s an entire early scene where one of the bad guys is explaining how they do these crimes to his whole crew, y’know, just in case they didn’t know BEFORE running remote msi bot scripts on their victim’s computers. They all already know this is a crime because they are working for you, defrauding people (Remember the GIGANTIC screens?) The Second and Third Acts (if there is a third??) only manage to further complicate and confuse the way the theme is meant to be used. There’s little to tie the last twenty minutes of the movie to the central theme since it’s too busy trying to wrap everything up in sound bites.
2/10 Character: Little to no background to anyone but the protagonist (of which there is almost none) makes it hard to appreciate why any of these people might be getting blasted away or are doing the said blasting. It also creates a myriad of questions where the audience shouldn’t have any. Allow me to list a few ranting examples: both Eloise and Verona Parker aren’t believable in their roles, one as a farmer afraid of hornets (is she allergic? She doesn’t say) and the other as a genius…alcoholic(??)…investigator(???Clay’s been there at least two seasons, so two+ years give or take, WHY DOESN’T VERONA know him???)…with the FBI???? (WHY DIDN’T HER MOTHER CALL HER IMMEDIATELY? They must hate each other. One of my TTT’s*** ) Adam Clay comes off as human sandpaper and the only other Beekeeper we ever meet is dispensed within a minute of meeting this man. Imagine if Superman decided to go on a killing spree with no one able to stand up to him: visually, it becomes a boring smash fest and that’s exactly what we’re watching here. There’s a “connected mob guy” who cries and acts as though he’s never been in a fight before, professional assassins who act like it’s their first day on the job, and OH YEAH THE GUY THAT FIGHTS LONGEST IS MISSING A LEG. Needless to say, there is little in the way of believable character depth or development that allows us to appreciate anything about these people.
2/10 Conflict: It doesn’t matter who the final Big Bad is, Adam Clay is going to get them and that’s as clear in Act 1 as it is in the final fight. Clay makes up his mind and does very little to change it, with almost no motivation for his killing spree (Remember: Eloise Parker committed suicide so Clay is going all 187 for fraud.) His mission seems to be the singular driving point to his character with little to no struggle in leaving the perceived calm world of beekeeping behind. The problem with this is that there is no expressed reason for this. Adam Clay is retired, which means he’s going off-book and making this personal. This is why I think perhaps he and Eloise were secret lovers because there’s no other logical explanation as to why he decides to go murdertown. He’s just “ON” and that’s it. It would also explain why Eloise never told Verona about the “white guy in her house” that she meets on the night of her mother’s death. It would be proper motivation for this, because otherwise it doesn’t make that much sense. Either that, or Adam Clay is just straight up insane. After all, HE burned down the barn after destroying the mob hit crew. Up to the very end, there’s little to no risk involved, which results in a very “low-stakes” feeling to each of the fights. It would have been preferable for Clay to have gotten the absolute piss kicked out of him and THEN gotten his revenge but literally no one touches him in the movie except one guy (WHO IS MISSING A LEG AND STILL TAKES LONGER TO DISPATCH??)
1/10 Dialogue: This is where my suspicions about AI really kick in. AI or terrible editing, but I’m leaning towards AI from the way the dialogue makes huge leaps in subjects being discussed, to the way each of the characters bring them up, suggesting non-sequitur connections that aren’t based in a real data source. It comes off like an amalgam of multiple conversations smashed into one. To be honest, I feel like I could write another entire article on the dialogue in this movie. I break down a few of the more notable scenes in the movie synopsis further down the article.
“You’ve been a busy bee”
“Bye, bitch, now!”
“Disappear the problem”
The term “protecting the hive” being used by multiple characters
9/10 Humanity: One of the few high scores in that this movie checks off several areas in which AI wasn’t used (at least in so much as I can tell) and human value is still part of the equation. Movies need to remain human at their core. These are some of the categories that I truly hope stay that way:
Human Actors ✔
Human Director ✔
Human Crew ✔
And thanks to those; additional crew:
Craft Services ✔
Creative Team/Marketing ✔
Assistants ✔
Hardware Maintenance (Camera/Grip/Etc.) ✔
3/10 Resolution: The writers appear to be leaving this open to a sequel so it gets a very low rating for this Value since the director and writers don’t have to be as invested in offering a decent resolution in one movie. They also don’t account for the way we as an audience would like to see a resolution play out, meaning that Adam Clay is such a badass and painted as unbeatable from the very beginning that we’re reduced to watching two-hours of him kicking ass. Imagine watching Jason Statham work out at a gym for two hours. That might work for you ladies out there, but it’s a boring concept just like knowing he’s unbeatable from the jump.
1/10 Pacing: I don’t know if it’s because the dialogue is so badly linked together or the scenes are so oddly disconnected; but pacing to this movie feels like a fever dream. It often jumps from scene to scene with no real connection as to why or how we got there. I honestly can’t tell if there’s even a Second or Third Act or if it’s just kind of a jumble, which is another reason the Resolution Value is so low. They should have left some exposition and character development scenes in. To see what I mean, watch every scene where Agent Parker is talking to any of the other agents like Agent Wiley or particularly the scenes with Deputy Director Prigg, there’s almost no actual information passing between the people in the conversation. It’s as if they all already know and move through each scene like there’s zero discovery to be had. Poor acting? Perhaps, but I blame the script or the editing or both.
1/10 Setting: Similar to the Pacing Value, every setting in the movie feels rushed and over-simplified. It doesn’t help that the entire thing was filmed in the UK but meant to look like the USA. The end result is like the game of telephone where someone that’s never seen a US call center, office, or farm has to figure out how to represent one on film without showing too much UK flavor. For example: is EVERY call center scam operation a neon warehouse club scene? I’ve worked several call center jobs and I’ve only ever seen versions of off-white or drab color tones on the walls. I know that’s not the same as a “Hackers”-era scam team with bright colorful wall-sized displays, disco floors, and mafia guys in suits that all looked designed, built, and tailored by Joel Schumacher. If you don’t get that joke, then go watch “Batman Forever”(1995) first and then come back and keep reading this. My favorite setting is the secret underground Beekeeper tracking service that Adam Clay uses that somehow looks like they’re both in a submarine and back in the 80’s. Overall, the setting is one of the reasons this movie gets a high humor rating. It feels like the production is suffering from a low budget, and the last place they put any effort was in setting the scenes.
I mean what is this:
9/10 Humor: This movie is hilarious, and not at all in the intentional moments or terrible puns (yes, they actually use a play on “to be or not to be”). The humor is in the dialogue, terrible editing, setting (the FBI office is leaking and that’s not even part of the story), and pacing throughout. It’s one of those ‘so bad, it’s good’ kind of movies that make you want to talk about it and break it down and ask yourself “why??” Here are some of the highlights:
Adam Clay’s monologue about hurting old people
The software and tech - “FriendlyFriend.net” ??? At least try a little
Most of the dialogue, too many examples to list here
A guy getting beaten with a phone handset
ALL of Josh Hutcherson’s character - “I’m going to go big dog this shit for a minute”
Josh Hutcherson’s character hitting on a girl using crypto and Instagram as the means to his end
The irony that the longest fight is with a guy missing a leg
1/10 Plot: This is also where I think this movie was written by AI, suffering from abysmal editing, or a combination of the two. The plot makes little to no sense. Some bullet points:
They spend the entire first half explaining and showing how unkillable Adam Clay is, and then never challenge this even with NUMBERS of mercenaries including an ACTIVE BEEKEEPER.
The retired CIA Director Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons) calls in a favor to his friend who says “the current Beekeeper” will address the problem and then:
The current Beekeeper gets killed by Adam Clay
The “They” that manages the Beekeepers program then change their minds and decide to go radio silent - imploding the very premise of Beekeepers to begin with:
If the purpose of Beekeepers existing is to ‘protect the system’ then how is going radio-silent on a retired Beekeeper killing ANOTHER ACTIVE Beekeeper something that is proper protocol? You’d think this would make them send ALL the Beekeepers in an effort to balance the hive and save the system or whatever.
The exposition explaining everything about Beekeepers is by Westwyld after saying “There were certain programs even I wasn’t read into” only to proceed to explain EVERYTHING about the program???
The FBI Deputy Director is acting like the program is super secretive, yet it seems like everyone including some yellow jacket mercenary KNOWS about the program and can speak to what it is?
We’re led to believe that Josh Hutcherson’s character is the Big Bad but then he never has the “big bad fight” with the protagonist Adam Clay, which leaves the end of the movie feeling bland.
Read on to see my “Top Ten Toe-picks” of this movie.
The top ten details that truly fall over themselves.
The Top Ten Toe-picks of “The Beekeeper”
For those who remember the movie “The Cutting Edge”( 1997) then you’ll appreciate this part of my reviews. It’s the top ten scenes or details that make me question the movie and, like a toe-pick, makes the movie stop right in it’s own path and fall short.
Eloise X Verona relationship - why they hated each other
Eloise & Adam’s secret love life
Verona’s complete lack of knowledge on Adam Clay
Adam Clay’s monologue about “hurting old people”
Details about the Beekeeper Program
The fact that Jeremy Iron’s character (who used to ‘run the CIA’) can’t seem to make up his mind about what he knows or doesn’t know about the Beekeepers program
The exposition explaining who the eff Beekeepers are is at the halfway point in the movie, leaving us scratching our heads for the first half
Verona Parker somehow uncovering information that other FBI agents couldn’t (???? how??? )
Josh Hutcherson…that’s it, his entire character
The “Mob Guy” Mr. Garnett
The FBI Deputy Director
The big fight is with a guy missing a leg
Every scene in the Bladerunner-esque neon nightclub call centers
The reveal about who Derek Danforth’s mother is and why it matters
The lack of other Beekeepers
Now let’s dig in to each of these to enjoy why this movie’s score is so low.
#LetsDoThis
1. Eloise X Verona’s Relationship - or “Why they hated each other”
After watching this movie a hundred times to dissect it; this is the only theory that makes sense to me with the context clues we’re given in the movie. This also supports my next toe-pick point. I have to believe that Eloise and Verona don’t talk and have had a major falling out more than several years ago. Possibly over the death of Verona’s brother who was a MARSOC Marine that got killed “kicking doors” years ago from the way Verona tells Clay about it.
First, we know that Adam Clay rents space in the barn from Eloise and has done so for long enough that he was able to revive the farmland from weeds and crabgrass and presumably give Eloise a new lease on her farm business. Somehow she’s a teacher but also owns a farm that required saving otherwise why would she call Adam Clay “a blessing” to her farm? Therefore we know that Adam Clay has been around for at least a harvest season or two.
Second, we know that Eloise and Adam are on social terms because she offers to feed him and he makes her some honey. Not that problematic except when Verona Parker is introduced to the scene. It makes absolutely no sense that Verona’s first introduction to Adam is the night her mother commits suicide. Notably, she lives in Boston however they never explain what she’s doing there at the farm in the late evening so far away from her own home. More importantly is the fact that she’s shocked to see Clay in her mother’s kitchen. If he’s such a blessing to the farm, why didn’t her mother tell her about him? It’s either they had a falling out, or Adam and Eloise were shacking up or both.
Finally, the fact that there is no mention of Eloise’s husband, ex-husband, or any explanation as to where or why he’s not in the picture leads me to the conclusion that Eloise was choosing to omit this information in the few conversations she may have had with Verona over the course of the last few years.
This is what leads me to believe they had a major falling out before Adam Clay ever stepped foot on the farm.
2. Eloise & Adam’s secret love life.
The above point would support why Verona isn’t called when Eloise is dealing with a virus that pops up on her computer. She says “My daughter set this up for me” meaning that Verona presumably set up her laptop and her anti-virus etc. Also, if Adam Clay is her neighbor then he presumably has his own farmland in which to put a barn and keep bees. It doesn’t make sense that he’d want to rent space out of a barn from his neighbor and the script doesn’t even attempt to explain this in any details.
2a. Verona’s complete lack of knowledge on Adam Clay
At no time in those few moments when the virus pops up does Eloise think to call Verona which would be the perfectly logical thing to do if she were the one to set up the computer, which leads me to believe the falling out theory is true. It would also explain why suicide was the viable option for her after losing all the charity’s money.
This makes me think perhaps Eloise and Verona had the falling out after her brother’s death several years ago, well before Adam Clay comes into the picture. This is the only explanation that I can come up with that matches why Verona doesn’t know this man from the beginning.
2b. Adam Clay’s monologue about “hurting old people”
At the core of it, the movie is about revenge. A man going on a killing spree because someone he loved died.
As I said before, either Eloise and Adam were secret lovers or Adam Clay is just patently insane and looking for any reason to go on a killing spree. The clues into the secret love are in Clay’s monologue about hurting old people when Verona reveals to him (against standard FBI protocol, btw) that her mother was scammed.
He chooses to exact his revenge based on this one conversation. He doesn’t appear to be insane in the movie, he seems calm and collected to the point of being boring. This makes me think it has to do with his feelings for Eloise.
Adam: “Someone hurts and older person; sometimes they’re left to face the hornets alone. Because either it goes unnoticed, or no one cares.”
3. Details about the Beekeeper Program
This is also where my claims of an AI-written script have some meat to them; with the way in which the Beekeeper program is handled throughout the movie. The FBI Deputy Director behaves as though it’s a secretive program, so we’re supposed to understand that it’s a relatively unknown program when compared to other government operations. The problem with this is that everyone in the movie seems to act like they already knew about the Beekeepers or are able to find information about the program somewhat easily the way Verona seems to find it.
3a. The fact that Jeremy Irons’ character (who used to ‘run the CIA’) can’t seem to make up his mind about what he knows or doesn’t know about the Beekeepers program.
Of course the majority of this movie’s lack of details bothered me, but what irks me about Jeremy Irons’ character is that he has the gravitas and acting chops to deliver some great moments but it’s all mired by the confusing dialogue and fuzzy details.
For example: His scene with Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson) at 40 minutes into the movie, the dialogue makes it sound like he doesn’t know exactly who or what the Beekeeper is. He just knows that Derek is screwed and there’s nothing he can do about it. We sit through an entire scene with Danforth asking who this guy is and doesn’t get an actual answer as Irons’ assures him he’s going to die. The concrete details of who and what the Beekeepers are haven’t been fully shared with the audience yet, this would have been an important detail to have before this scene so we can fully appreciate why Westwyld is truly freaking out.
So far, all we know is that Adam Clay is a determined serial killer that seems to be on the right side of justice, but all it’s been is context clues given in random dialogue that wasn’t well-paced. In fact, the very next scene is where some of the factual details are established which would have allowed us to appreciate why Westwyld was worried.
In this scene, it simply reads like he’s afraid of all beekeepers in general, and not the Beekeeper program. He never tells Danforth that it’s an actual military program with trained professionals so the dialogue just makes it sound like he’s talking about the general profession. It’s stupid.
Here’s the entirety of the exchange about it:
Westwyld: “And you said one guy did all this?”
Danforth: “Yup”
Westwyld: “Killed seven armed men without firing a shot?”
Danforth: “Yup. And he said he was gonna kill me.”
Westwyld: “And this is your… data-mining consumer service business, right?”
Danforth: “Yea. Something like that. Pulling in nine million a month, in one office. I’ve got, like, twenty.”
Westwyld: “And the only thing you know about him, is that he says he’s a beekeeper?”
Danforth: “Yeah, that’s like his whole brand or whatever.”
Westwyld: “Jesus.”
Danforth: “What?”
Westwyld: “For someone who has elevated fucking up into an art form, this might well be your Mona Lisa.”
Danforth: “How did I fuck up?”
Westwyld: “I don’t know. You’ve done something. You’ve disturbed a Beekeeper.”
Danforth: “Oh. Oh oh okay. So fucking what, why’d I care if the guy keeps bees?”
Westwyld: “If a Beekeeper says you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die. There’s nothing I can do or anybody else to stop it.”
Danforth: “So, like, what do you even do here, then? What good are you?”
We then break from talking about the Beekeepers to Westwyld saying he worked in the CIA and now keeps Danforth Enterprises safe. Nothing else about Clay or the Beekeepers in detail. They end the convo with this:
Danforth: “Wallace, just tell me, what the fuck this guy is?”
Westwyld: “He’s probably the last pair of eyes you’re going to sneer at.”
3b. The exposition explaining who the eff Beekeepers are is at the halfway point in the movie, leaving us scratching our heads for the first half.
However, Jeremy Irons then delivers the monologue roughly ten minutes later at the halfway point that explains exactly who and what the Beekeepers are. After commenting that there were programs even he wasn’t privy to as the CIA Director; he somehow knows everything about the program and freely explains it to a room of hired mercenaries. So much for secretive program, right?
This is why I said previously that this movie gets a 2/10 for the Conflict Value because explaining who Adam Clay is doesn’t really make a difference to the direction of the story. It merely plays as an interlude between all the Clay ass-kicking scenes that lead up to the final fight. Jeremy Irons’ revealing who the Beekeepers are changes nothing except revealing some relevant character development that could have been used much earlier in the movie.
3c. Verona Parker somehow uncovering information that other FBI agents couldn’t (???? how??? )
So is the program secret or is it not so secret? The other FBI Agent can’t find information on Adam Clay, and yet Verona can learn everything there is to know about the Beekeeper program through her reading of a beekeeping book and one sentence about analysts.
Verona: “Okay, so I had some analysts run some shit, and I think I’m starting to get the shape of the animal.”
There is no supporting scenes showing Verona uncovering details about the Beekeepers in a fun or unique way that would answer why she has this leverage. It feels like rushed and lazy writing which AI is famous for.
The FBI Deputy Director even attempts to discourage her from saying the term or referring to the program in one scene where she spends less than five minutes ‘debriefing him’ on the situation. This presumably means there’s an unspoken moratorium within the FBI on searching “Beekeeper” or going into the FBI Archives or database to do the same. How did she get analysts to do anything without an approval process?
4. Josh Hutcherson…that’s it, his entire character
Phew. Mannnnnn…. I don’t know what to say about this kid.
This movie suffered from some epically poor casting akin to making Snow White not actually … snow white (Disney sucks anyway) but the worst of them all was in choosing little Josh Hutcherson to attempt to play an imposing character of any kind.
Snot-nosed bratty kid? Sure. But man who has believable amounts of power enough to run a billion dollar identify theft scam is an extremely far stretch for an actor whose pedigree is based in teen boppers. Yes, I’m being ageist, get over it. He’s not tough nor is he believable as anything but a whiny little shit.
There’s a lot of roles he can play but I think they’re all a long journey across a bridge to some hungry games or something; certainly not a convincing bad guy. He’s the goofy sidekick, nerd the main character confides in, or teen romance loser; but not a bad guy. Not for lack of trying or forcing the work “fuck” into every sentence to somehow sound tougher. He sounds stupid when he talks and doesn’t do anything to disprove this throughout the entire movie.
That said, his character behaves like a young piece of very punchable crap so I suppose the end goal of hating him throughout the entire movie was a successful accomplishment for the writers. The problems arise when it comes to his responsibilities in the movie. He’s absolutely not believable as a billionaire entrepreneur that was somehow capable of winning the presidency for his mother but also skates around the office, says things like “hit me up on Insta”, and concerns himself with the kind of sushi he’ll eat that day. This is a cartoon characterization of a “spoiled brat” archetype with little substance to it. It clashes with what we’re being told as the audience that he’s capable of running … well, anything.
He reads like two characters that AI scanned from other stories or manuscripts and just smashed together into one. This is further complicated by the dialogue in some scenes that confuses the details even more. Let’s discuss:
A film flub detail that I think plays into this is that Jeremy Irons’ character keeps calling it Derek Danforth’s (Hutcherson) “Data-mining consumer service operation” or he says “you keep me a million miles away from your metaverse meth lab or whatever it is.”
This is an operation that Derek Danforth (Hutcherson) supposedly controls; however, later in the movie when all hell is coming down on them through Clay; Hutcherson calls it Irons’ data-mining software.
So which is it?
This is the kind of detail-swapping that sloppy AI writing can do, when it can’t keep track of the character arcs from one to another and instead blends them or messes them up. Editors, anyone?
5. The “Mob Guy” Mr. Garnett
The casting director got a discount on skinny white guys because Garnett is the second of the two worst choices in this movie, only outplayed by Hutcherson’s sheer annoying personality. He’s as believable as a “connected mob guy” as the government telling everyone that the jab was safe and effective. Now look at y’all.
Not only does this guy say lines like “Bye, Bitch, now!” but he acts as if he’s a trust-fund baby rather than someone who has been hardened by time in crime. He calls Danforth “Mr. Danforth” which means he’s an errand boy at best. Not connected except for maybe the purple suit and gold chain, like the costumer looked up “Guido” on Google and just went with the first outfit they saw.
If he was connected to the Mob in some way, why then, did he not call his entire squad once Adam Clay sliced his fingers off? He instead calls his non-Mob boss (Also, why does he have a job if he’s connected?) to cry about it. He’s dispatched shortly after this and it makes little to no difference to the plot.
You’d think a story arc of the movie would have been an entire league of Mobsters coming after Adam Clay for killing “one of their own.” This is another lazy writing film flub that nobody seemed to think through.
6. The FBI Deputy Director
I don’t know the first thing about the FBI, and neither does this guy.
It’s less the casting as the actor did a fine job, but no amount of great acting can overcome terrible dialogue just as we’ve been seeing with Irons’ eating marbles through his lines.
No, the issues with the FBI Deputy Director are with how he’s positioned in the movie as a 1D character to drive the plot forward and nothing else. So much so that his death at the end of the movie is played as a side scene that is overshadowed in the very next moment. We’re given no motivation and even less understanding for what he’s doing bothering about an FBI case in an office he had to fly out to. He bothers to fly out from DC to come Boston to Verona Parker to be debriefed but then the entire exchange has little to no actual details.
V: “Mr. Deputy Director, my colleague and I believe that three major crime scenes in our area are connected to a single subject. Adam Clay. He killed six people today. Based on the extensive use of tradecraft and the nature of his alias, we believe Mr. Clay is connected to a classified program named Beekeeper. A program that none of our partner agencies seem willing to acknowledge.”
Prigg: “Let’s stick to what we know, Special Agent Parker.” (shifty eyes)
V: (Shifty eyes back) “Yes sir. In any event, this individual is highly capable and extremely motivated, and we believe he’s on his way to Boston if not already here. And we believe that this is his next target, Nine Start United. Which appears to be the entity operating the regional call centers like the one Mr. Clay burned down.”
Prigg: “Why is Adam Clay on this rampage?”
V: “He’s, um, protecting the hive, sir. It’s what Beekeepers do.”
Prigg: “I have enough to brief the Director. What’s your ask?”
V: “My ask? Uh, well, a SWAT team for starters. Surveillance support, additional agents, analysts.”
Prigg: “That shouldn’t be a problem.” < LEAVES >
V: “Thank you”
???????? Am I the only one left feeling like this scene was missing something? It feels like they had to cut scenes for time and decided they would streamline it to the absolute bare minimum context and details that needed to be in the scene for it to work.
That’s like stripping a car down to the wheels and frame. Not even a steering wheel to get where we’re going.
7. The big fight is with a guy missing a leg
“COME AT ME, BRUUU”
This had to be on purpose. This whole movie is a trolling on action flicks.
The end fight scene is with a guy wearing a yellow jacket and missing a leg. He somehow lasts longer against Adam Clay than even the active Beekeeper.
I think the movie couldn’t figure out where it needed to fit the Big Bad Fight Scene and just crammed it into the last twenty minutes. Like every other fight scene, it adds nothing to the movie or story in any way and Adam Clay predictably wins without breaking much of a sweat. Boring. By this time in the first watch of this movie, I had decided that it felt written by AI.
AND ALSO THE DUDE WAS MISSING AN EFFIN’ LEG AND STILL LASTS???
8. Every scene in the Bladerunner-esque neon nightclub call centers
I mean, come. ON.
Yes, I too as a Mob-connected goon would choose to broadcast all my criminal activity by looking like we’re working in a strip club and pumping club music while we do it. Yes. Absolutely.
Details like this are why the movie gets at 1/10 Setting Value. Yeah, I get that David Ayer wanted things to look “tech” and “future” and “cool” but Hollywood directors like him seem to forgot we’re not living in a goddamn comic book and the world is a lot more bleak in surroundings than we’d like to admit.
What is this:
And this:
And this:
I would love to understand the thought process behind the set designers and the director, I imagine the conversation had to go something like this:
Dir: “Ok so we want the call centers to be badass, just truly awesome in every way, make them have neon lights and look like everyone there is young and hip and having a great time.”
SD: “Cool. I think we can do that.”
Dir: “And I want there to be giant screens everywhere that nobody is actually using, with flashing data like we’re in an MTV music video.”
SD: “Um. Ok, we can do that.”
Dir: “And I want there to be loud club music everywhere, and a floor length light-up dancefloor in the middle! Make the whole thing look really slutty.”
SD: “Um. What.”
***
9. The reveal about who Derek Danforth’s mother is and why it matters
Just like the confusing scenes that are hobbled together explaining who the Beekeepers are; so are the scenes explaining who Derek Danforth is and why we should care. We meet him very early on in the movie, but we’re not given enough clues as to where he fits into the power scheme of the rest of the people in the movie. He comes off as just another rich jerk with no empathy for anyone.
Let me explain one fundamental principle within movies: It goes ONE way, one timeline: forward. This means that information we’re given as the audience needs to be given in such a way that it can be correctly appreciated for how it integrates with the rest of the plot.
We don’t meet Danforth’s mother, Jessica Danforth until 43 minutes into the movie and even then she isn’t established as anyone of importance except in that she’s Derek’s mother and wants to pay Westwyld a lot of money to protect him. Simple enough. While we get to see how Westwyld came to be in the same circles as an idiot like Derek; it doesn’t add much value to who the Danforth’s are. I understand the movie is attempting to build the suspense for a big payoff reveal, however, it doesn’t work well when we already know Adam Clay is motivated and won’t stop.
My thought at this point is: So what if Derek Danforth and his whole operation go down? What is the world without another a-hole and his many corporations.
There’s a scene later where the FBI Agents see Derek’s face on a computer screen for the first time and they’re shocked. We’ve already seen Derek, so it comes off as odd that these FBI Agents are surprised it’s him. There’s ominous music and one FBI Agent simply says “Holy shit”. It’s meant to indicate that Derek is someone of extreme importance (I know, I have a hard time believing it too.)
We, however, as the audience don’t feel the impact of that scene because we still don’t know who or why Derek is supposed to matter in the grand scheme of things. We just know that Adam Clay is after him.
They finally reveal that Jessica Danforth is the President of the United States but by the time they do, we already know Adam Clay is going to get the job done one way or another. The suspense falls flat and the end of the movie feels like a conclusion that was far too easy, albeit with a lot of deaths.
10. The lack of other Beekeepers
And the ONE THING WE ALL WANTED AND NEVER GOT: More BEEKEEPERS.
They had the opportunity.
They had all the great set up.
And they ruined it!
We see Adam Clay kill ONE other Beekeeper and do so without even a serious fight, she was a waste of potential and made the Beekeeper program appear extremely weak and useless.
We never get the chance to see Adam Clay matched up against one of his own, against another person who is equally as lethal and equally as good. The end of this movie would have been so much better if they had simply had an Ip Man style fight of master fighter vs. master fighter.
We never truly get to see Adam Clay put to the test.
The framework was right there… They coulda done so much.
Conclusion
Scripts go through multiple drafts before they’re finally greenlit and made into movies. It feels like we’re watching several script drafts that were competing for first prize to rush the story to completion without spending the appropriate time to make the story make sense. The concept had so much potential when the trailer came out but it sadly devolved into just another Statham punch-fest.
I guess I shouldn’t “bee” surprised.
Sorry.
•••
Love,
R. Carnie Littlefield
Littlefield Log
March 15th, 2025
