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    ‘The Beekeeper’ Review: Sting Like a, You Know

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    In this action thriller, Jason Statham plays a man who will do whatever it takes to protect his hive.“To bee or not to bee?” That is a question asked to Jason Statham in “The Beekeeper,” a delirious entry in the thriving genre of action flicks about gunslingers who list a different career on their LinkedIn. (See also: “The Painter” and “The Bricklayer,” both released just last week.) The director David Ayer’s previous shoot-em-up, “The Tax Collector,” was woefully short on quips about audits. He and the screenwriter Kurt Wimmer have not made that mistake here. Take a swig of mead every time Statham vows to protect the hive — by which he means society — and you’ll have a fine time. Either way, you won’t remember a thing about the plot.Statham (“The Mechanic,” “The Transporter”) plays Adam Clay, an honest-to-goodness beekeeper who opens the film jarring honey. (Kudos to the costumer Kelli Jones for designing a slim-cut quilted beekeeping suit that gives Statham the panache of a fencer.) In the first minutes, his landlord, a kindly retiree named Eloise (Phylicia Rashad) loses her life savings to a network of internet scammers who prey on the older and the naïve. This cabal of techno thieves rakes in millions every day and boasts the political connections to use the Delta Force and SEAL Team 6 as bodyguards. They’re still no match for a guy who can wipe out a hornet’s nest with a stun gun. As a corrupt former C.I.A. head (Jeremy Irons) sighs, “If a beekeeper says you’re going to die, you’re going to die.”The script’s ridiculous rationale — which our hero repeatedly intones like he’s hypnotizing us to believe it — is that certain beekeepers have pledged to prevent colony collapse, both apoidea and homo sapien. Sure, that’ll do. No less a scribe than William Shakespeare claimed that bees “teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom.”Really, Statham is simply the embodiment of death. There’s no hesitation, no heightened escalation, just kill kill kill. The fight choreography and editing are bludgeoning, though there’s a nifty cut where a goon gets flung over the camera and the cinematographer Gabriel Beristain flips around to watch the man’s body tumble down the stairs. When a marvelous heavy (Taylor James) slides on brass knuckles, the sound of a punch was so startling that I jumped (and giggled).Things drag whenever “The Beekeeper” goes through the motions of being sensible. There’s endless scenes of panicky phone calls and a go-nowhere moral debate between outsider justice and civilized law featuring Eloise’s daughter, Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman), a heavy-boozing, monomaniacal F.B.I. agent who I suspect was funnier on the page. I’d forgo her subplot for more of Ayer’s giddy villains: the call center creepazoids Mickey (David Witts) and Rico (Enzo Cilenti), their skateboarding tech bro boss, Derek (Josh Hutcherson), and a rival bee freak, Anisette (Megan Le), who enters screaming and exits far too soon.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. Yet, Ayer makes it plain that he’s in on the joke. As Statham lays waste to a camo-clad squadron, the shoulder patches on their uniforms read: BS.The BeekeeperRated R for stinging language and violence. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Expend4bles’ Review: Band of Meatheads

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      Sylvester Stallone leads an all-star mercenary squadron composed of ’80s-to-aughts brutes in the fourth installment of this franchise.The tone of “Expend4bles” can be summarized in a single close-up: a corpse’s severed hand flipping the bird. To its director, Scott Waugh, and all those responsible for resurrecting this dormant action franchise, the middle finger gestures toward this fourth installment’s intended style: macho, smirky and defiant. At its best, the film is all three. This all-star mercenary squadron composed of ’80s-to-aughts brutes is the cinematic equivalent to Slash’s Snakepit, a supergroup throwback to an era when men were meatheads and we in the audience merrily cheered them on.I’ll admit I still did, at least for some of this swaggering inanity. Why resist the impossible physics of Curtis Jackson (better known as 50 Cent) body-slamming a baddie back and forth like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum with his dolly? Or Dolph Lundgren lampooning his aging vision by screwing a prescription lens onto his sniper rifle? Or Sylvester Stallone grumbling about a thumb-wrestling injury that he’s chosen to nurse with a tiny custom leather sling? Or Jason Statham, the comically gifted bruiser now promoted to the series’ lead, doing, well, pretty much anything?In an even earlier era, Statham’s nimble skills would have awarded him a career like Jimmy Cagney’s. But he’s stuck working in ours, with a script that offers a few enjoyable quips — he calls an enemy “a sneaky little sausage” — but mostly lets him down. The screenwriters Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart and Max Adams seem to share a mutual disinterest in the plot, intoning the words “detonator” and “World War 3” until the threats become background static.These high jinks would be more fun if the actors didn’t look so unflappable. Nothing breaks their composure. Not explosions or blood spatters, not beheadings or nuclear bombs, not even the sight of a warship careening in the Sea of Japan. (Perhaps because all of the above have been cheaply rendered in post.) Even a back-flipping, insult-slinging seduction scene between Statham and a new teammate, played by Megan Fox, climaxes without a lip-gloss smudge. It’s just one more artificial palpitation.The energy sputters along on throwaway gags, like when Jacob Scipio, as a motor-mouthed young Expendable, sips a cocktail with a pink umbrella at a wake. There’s an absurdly enjoyable detour with a lecherous internet influencer (Samuel Black) and a shootout interrupted by a stereo blasting 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.,” which is just plain absurd. Is Jackson the rapper in the same universe as Jackson the assassin? Does he moonlight in carnage?Andy Garcia, Randy Couture, Levy Tran and the great martial artist Tony Jaa round out our cast of protagonists while Iko Uwais heads up a generic goon squad, giving all the intensity he can to a villain written with no identifiable traits other than a scar. When things get dull, there’s always Lundgren in the background, playing up his character’s nearsightedness with the daffy charm of Marilyn Monroe. But the film’s last reel is so awful — so sneeringly contemptuous of our good-faith efforts to play along with these shenanigans — that we leave the theater still thinking of that middle finger. It sure seemed pointed at us.Expend4blesRated R for curses and extravagantly digitalized carnage. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Meg 2: The Trench’ Review: Gleefully Jumping the Shark

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      This lively sequel to 2018’s somewhat tepid killer-shark blockbuster greatly improves upon its predecessor by getting gorier, funnier and more stylish.A cute dog, an 8-year-old girl and countless sunbathing beachgoers survived “The Meg” (2018) miraculously unharmed. The British filmmaker Ben Wheatley, who steps into the director’s chair for “Meg 2: The Trench,” has racked up stomach-turning body counts (including dogs) in his darkly comic thrillers like “Down Terrace,” “Kill List” and “Free Fire,” so it seems only fair that his take on a killer-shark movie would lean a bit more vicious.But “Meg 2,” like the first, maintains a box office-friendly PG-13 rating, so Wheatley is necessarily limited in how much carnage he is permitted to depict. Nevertheless, he finds many creative ways to butcher bad guys and side characters that hit the same horror-adjacent pleasure centers. There’s a shot from the point of view of a shark’s mouth as it’s eating people. I call that good directing.The first “Meg,” with its story of a long-extinct carnivore re-emerging to wreak havoc among scientists, was reminiscent of “Jurassic Park.” “Meg 2” takes the natural next step and borrows from “The Lost World.” The shark-hunting, ocean-protecting hero Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) now has a stepdaughter (Sophia Cai) to protect, while the repertoire of prehistoric predators on the hunt has been richly expanded to include several land-roaming dinosaurs and (why not?) a giant squid. Of course, any shark movie will inevitably live in the shadow of “Jaws.” Wheatley has fun with it by nodding playfully to “Jaws 2.”The director having fun is the presiding feeling here — which may account for why the movie is so frequently amusing, and occasionally delightful. It has a light, irreverent tone that sometimes verges on parodic, as when a villain’s archly confident victory speech is disrupted by a shark appearance straight out of “Deep Blue Sea,” or when a splashy pink title card cheerfully informs us that the populated area about to be descended upon by a trio of sharks is called “Fun Island.” Just how close does the movie get to full-blown parody? At one point, Statham literally jumps a shark.It’s not that the first “Meg” was particularly serious: It contained comic relief, but the humor felt more studio-mandated. “Meg 2” has a spark of wit that feels looser and more appropriate to the material. The supporting cast — especially Page Kennedy and Cliff Curtis as scientists forced to join the action — are offered much more freedom to cut loose and get silly, while certain sight gags have a verve that really pop (including an escalating bit that has more and more of our heroes wandering into the same armed holdup). No dogs come to harm in this one either, it should be said. There’s enough madcap mayhem elsewhere that any more would have been overkill.Meg 2: The TrenchRated PG-13 for intense action, mild language and excessive shark violence. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre’ Review: The Getaway Car Is Stuck on Cruise

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      Guy Ritchie’s latest action-comedy puts Jason Statham and Aubrey Plaza in the middle of a rote heist story.The running joke of Jason Statham’s remarkably sturdy stardom — his bankability as an action lead has been running for over two decades — is that he always plays the same character: a stoic, unbreakable enforcer who offers the occasional gravel-toned wisecrack. The director Guy Ritchie’s own trademark, the stylized British crime comedy, has found its most frequent muse in this archetype, which Ritchie has helped shape in Statham ever since they both broke out with “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” (1999).They’ve paired up time and time again, but in “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre,” it seems as if Ritchie, and in turn Statham, has rested too casually into the routine. The distinguishing quality of Statham’s character in this one? Orson Fortune is the best mission man out there, but he grates his employers with bougie requests: for the best wines, and for “rehabilitation vacations” to assuage his neuroticism. It’s an odd character trait thrown on top of Statham’s typically hardened exterior, and, despite the best efforts of a handful of weak jokes, feels thrown in as an afterthought.Much of the movie operates this way, as a perfunctory heist film just going through the motions. Ritchie seems impatient to get things over with, jumping straight into the mission: A mysterious briefcase has been stolen, and the British government hires a private contractor (Cary Elwes) and his team (Statham, Aubrey Plaza and company) to retrieve it. Soon enough, we’re introduced to the twist: To court the billionaire arms dealer involved in the theft (played by Hugh Grant), Orson decides to kidnap the world’s biggest movie star, Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett), whom he plans to use as bait.The silly premise is one that a better Ritchie film could, with some charm, style and wit, have turned into a workable romp. But everything here is stuck on autopilot. Statham is underutilized, and the movie doesn’t convincingly establish him as the gritty badass it wants him to be. That is fine enough for a film that intends to rely on the breezy touch of a crime-crew comedy, but the ensemble is similarly turned into background noise. It’s not so much that the cast members lack chemistry, but rather that the film doesn’t bother to establish any legible dynamic between their characters, leaving the halfhearted banter without a place to land. Hartnett doesn’t quite have the star power to really make the meta-humor of his character work, rendering his arc a pointless narrative gimmick.Plaza, though, is the most woefully wasted piece of it all. On paper, there’s real potential between her and Statham — Plaza’s unfazed snark meeting the unamused and immovable object that is Statham — and we see it in pockets. But she’s mostly left as a side player in a film that doesn’t know how to capitalize on their chemistry or to just hand the reins to Plaza to shoot more guns and make more jokes. We’re left instead with brief moments of her devilish charm and fleeting, thrilling seconds of her shooting out a car window in slow motion with Hartnett cowering in the driver’s seat.Operation Fortune: Ruse de GuerreRated R for language and violence. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Wait, Who’s Fast, Who’s Furious?

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      A guide to the characters and the melodramas in the sprawling, surprisingly complicated “Fast & Furious” franchise.At one point, rather a long time ago now, the “Fast & Furious” movies were about street racing. They do still involve cars moving at breakneck speeds, but only as one component in a blockbuster machine that also routinely includes high-stakes espionage, military-grade shootouts, multimillion-dollar bank heists and villainous schemes for global annihilation. They lately have more in common with James Bond or “Mission: Impossible” than with “Gone in 60 Seconds.”As the movies have gotten bigger and more spectacular, so too has their ensemble swelled and broadened, and with the latest installment, “F9,” the list of marquee names makes “Game of Thrones” look like “Waiting for Godot.” This is made more complicated by the franchise’s tendency to shuffle characters in and out of the troupe without warning or explanation — actors are frequently being written out and then written back in, or killed off, then suddenly resuscitated. It can be very, very hard to keep track of who’s who and what their deal is.With “F9” nitrous-boosting its way into theaters this weekend, here’s a handy cast explainer to get you up to speed.Vin Diesel in “Fast Five.”Jaimie Trueblood/Universal PicturesDominic Toretto (Vin Diesel)The heart of the series, Dom’s a world-weary, Corona-drinking street racer and car hijacker with an obsessive devotion to his family and a fraught relationship to the law. He first appeared in “The Fast and the Furious” (2001, the movie that started it all) as a small-time Los Angeles crook with a heart of gold, and has gradually evolved to become a sort of freelance secret agent and globe-trotting supercop. In “The Fate of the Furious” (2017), it was revealed that he had an infant son.Paul Walker in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesBrian O’Conner (Paul Walker)The original series hero, Brian was a cop going undercover as a street racer to bust Dom and his crew of hijackers. When it came time to make the arrest, Brian chose to let Dom get away, and the two have been like brothers ever since. Paul Walker died in an automobile accident in 2013, but rather than kill him off, the films wrote Brian into peaceful retirement. He was last seen in the closing moments of “Furious 7” (2015) literally riding off into the sunset.Michelle Rodriguez in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesLetty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez)Dom’s wife and partner in crime, Letty was killed at the beginning of the fourth film, “Fast & Furious” (2009), after she ran afoul of a master criminal. In “Fast & Furious 6” (2013), however, she was revealed to have survived the murder attempt after all — though with a serious case of mind-wiping amnesia, which caused her, temporarily, to team up with the bad guys. She saw the error of her ways at the end of that movie, and she’s been back with Dom and company ever since.Tyrese Gibson in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesRoman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson)One of Brian’s childhood friends, Roman was introduced in “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003, the first sequel) as a silver-tongued Lothario who is sensational behind the wheel. Since being called upon for help with a bank heist in “Fast Five” (2011), he’s been a mainstay of Dom’s crew, usually serving as the comic relief.Ludacris in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesTej Parker (Ludacris)Like Roman, Tej first appeared in “2 Fast 2 Furious” and has been a series regular since “Fast Five.” He’s the crew’s gifted computer hacker, handling comms, tech and surveillance, although when necessary, he’s willing to drive or fight. Tej and Roman have a friendly rivalry and tease each other constantly.Dwayne Johnson in “Furious 7.”Scott Garfield/Universal picturesLuke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson)Dwayne Johnson made his debut in “Fast Five” as the brawny Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs, the antagonist striving to foil Dom and his crew’s heist plans. Eventually, Dom and friends won him over to their side, and since “Fast & Furious 6” he’s been their frequent teammate and friend. He most recently appeared in the series spinoff “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” (2019).Jordana Brewster in “Fast Five.”Jaimie Trueblood/Universal PicturesMia Toretto (Jordana Brewster)Dom’s sister, Mia, was Brian’s love interest in “The Fast and the Furious,” and she has continued to accompany him on his adventures. After she gave birth to her first child, in “Furious 7,” she and Brian have been in retirement, and is back for “F9” after being sidelined in “The Fate of the Furious.”Sung Kang in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesHan Lue (Sung Kang)Han, a Korean street racer living in Japan, co-starred in the third film in the series, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” (2006), and was killed in a car crash during the finale. He appeared alive and well in the next three sequels, however, because they evidently took place before the third film chronologically. To add to the confusion, his accidental death was rewritten as a murder in “Furious 7,” using a mix of archival and new footage. And now he is back, alive again, in “F9,” for reasons that are as yet unclear.Gal Gadot in “Fast Five.”Jaimie Trueblood/Universal PicturesGisele Yashar (Gal Gadot)A femme fatale in “Fast & Furious,” Gisele was inducted into the crew in “Fast Five,” when she started a romantic relationship with Han. She died in “Fast & Furious 6,” sacrificing herself to save Han during the action-packed climax. She has not been brought back to life — yet.Nathalie Emmanuel in “F9.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesMegan Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel)A world-renowned super-hacker rescued by Dom and his crew from kidnapping in the middle of “Furious 7,” Ramsey has since become a series regular who helps the team with computer-related problems. Tej and Roman have been steadily competing to win her affections.Lucas Black in “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”John Johnson/Universal PicturesSean Boswell (Lucas Black)The hero of “Tokyo Drift,” Sean is a ne’er-do-well young street racer who hopes to avoid a stint in juvenile detention by shipping out to live with his father in Japan. Other than a brief cameo in “Furious 7,” he hadn’t appeared in a “Fast” movie since, but surprisingly enough, he’s back for “F9.”Kurt Russell in “The Fate of the Furious.”Matt Kennedy/Universal PicturesMr. Nobody (Kurt Russell)A top-secret government agent with seemingly limitless resources, Mr. Nobody hired Dom and his crew to help save the world in “Furious 7” and again in “Fate of the Furious.” Think of him as the M to Dom’s James Bond.2017 FATE OF THE FURIOUSUniversal PicturesDeckard Shaw (Jason Statham)Another villain turned hero, Shaw tried to wipe out Dom’s crew in “Furious 7” before teaming up with them in “The Fate of the Furious.” He last co-starred in the series spinoff “Hobbs & Shaw” and only has a small cameo in “F9.”Helen Mirren in “F9.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesMagdalene Shaw (Helen Mirren)Deckard’s cockney-accented mother, Magdalene, turned up in “The Fate of the Furious” to lend a hand to Dom. She was last seen in “Hobbs & Shaw,” serving time in prison.Luke Evans in “Fast & Furious 6.”Universal PicturesOwen Shaw (Luke Evans)Deckard’s brother, Owen, meanwhile, was the villain terrorizing the crew in “Fast & Furious 6,” hounding them across London before being thrown out of an airplane in mid-takeoff. He survived that fall and came to Deckard’s (and Dom’s) aid in “The Fate of the Furious.”Charlize Theron in “F9.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesCipher (Charlize Theron)Cipher is reputedly the world’s most gifted and terrifying hacker, so much so that even the notorious Anonymous collective is afraid to mess with her. She tries to bring about nuclear war in “The Fate of the Furious,” holding Dom’s baby son hostage and killing the baby’s mother in the process. She returns — apparently as a villain again — in “F9.”John Cena in “F9.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesJakob Toretto (John Cena)A newcomer to the saga. Jakob is Dom’s never-before-mentioned brother, and of course the primary antagonist of “F9.”Elsa Pataky in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesElena Neves (Elsa Pataky)Dom’s love interest when Letty was presumed dead, Elena was a cop in Rio tapped by Hobbs for assistance in “Fast Five.” She had Dom’s baby, unbeknown to him, and was killed by Cipher shortly after revealing the news to him in “The Fate of the Furious.”Tego Calderon and Don Omar in “Fast Five.”Jaimie Trueblood/Universal PicturesTego and Rico (Tego Calderon and Don Omar)Perennial comic sidekicks Tego and Rico have tagged along on several of Dom’s jobs, and usually turn up once or twice per movie for some pratfalls. More

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      ‘Wrath of Man’ Review: ‘H’ Has Some Fury

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      Jason Statham plays H, a movie tough guy you don’t want to mess with, in Guy Ritchie’s action film.The filmmaker Guy Ritchie has long shown an eagerness to take a whack at almost any blockbuster format a given studio is willing to offer him. Witness the noisome “Sherlock Holmes” period pictures he’s made with Robert Downey Jr., or his more recent live-action consideration of Disney’s “Aladdin.” But his most enjoyable movies remain the tough, nasty crime thrillers with which he kicked off his career back in 1999 with “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.”His new “Wrath of Man” is such an item, although it’s more somber and less rollicking than the likes of “Lock.” It’s also a remake, of the 2004 French film “Le Convoyeur.” Ritchie fares better here with secondhand material than he did with “Aladdin,” not to mention “Swept Away” (2002).Jason Statham plays Hill, a mysterious, taciturn tough guy who takes a job at an armored car company that recently was hit by murderous robbers. His trainer, called Bullet, shortens Hill’s name to “H.” “Like the bomb,” Bullet explains to a co-worker.H proves his mettle by single-handedly putting down a truck hijacking, during which, in an inordinately satisfying moment, he takes out a punk played by the pop musician Post Malone. H’s co-workers hail him as a hero, but other characters wonder who exactly this guy is, and what he’s doing at this job.As Kirk Douglas in “The Fury” and Liam Neeson in “Taken” have shown, there are certain men with whose family one ought not to mess with. Here Statham is one of them. The gravity of H’s true mission accounts for the movie’s tone. Ritchie reveals crucial story points with clever time-juggling editing, and keeps up the tension well into the movie’s climax, which delivers exactly what the viewer will have come to hope for.Wrath of ManRated R for violence and language. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More