An excerpt from my script review for The Beekeeper which will be available 05/28/24:
2.) Plot Stability
Full disclaimer…
I saw this before I read it, and I fell asleep. However that day I was also up early for a 0630 flight to Denver and the boy and I went to see the movie at 6pm that night without this old man having a nap.
In a reclining theater seat how was I supposed to stay awake?
The one thing that really got me was the premise of Eloise being tricked out of her savings.
This is an issue I’m scared to death of for my mother as she relies more and more on online banking, and even worse signing into sensitive shit on her phone.
Scams are getting more sophisticated all the time, and just not clicking a link in an email isn’t enough anymore.
The premise is a legitimate and scary possibility for the children of aging parents, or at least it should be.
The one thing the movie improves on here is that in addition to her savings, Eloise is also the trustee on a charitable account worth over a million dollars. This ups the stakes and makes her suicide that more plausible, because she lost, and could be prosecuted for, the organization’s money.
One note here is that I feel like the call center scammer pushed too much for the free $100. No one with $250k plus in their savings is going to worry about getting $100 with this many warning signs in a single call.
Okay so…
The initial premise is good, and it’s not long before Eloise gets scammed, kills herself, and kick-starts Statham’s kicking spree.
From here on out it’s a typical vengeance movie. Big action and bigger explosions.
Are parts of the plot too convenient?
From how easy it is for Clay to blow up a building to how the bad guys luck out and stumble across his home (despite an entire day worth of transactions happening in between Eloise’s death and the explosion)…sure it is, but remember projects like this don’t require “deep thinking”.
The one thing I did have an issue with though is just how many innocents die when Beekeepers are “restoring the balance”.
Almost as bad as a comic book, when you think of all the destruction someone like Spider-Man causes when he’s trying to stop a super villain.
Other than that, this one plays out and delivers pretty much what we’d expect.
Want EARLY access to our videos, uploads, and movie/script reviews? Members get them FIRST! Follow this link to our Discussion Forum.
