The Beekeeper’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Sets New Record for Director David Ayer

Audiences are loving The Beekeeper, so much so that the film has set a new record for its director.

At Rotten Tomatoes, The Beekeeper was met with reviews that were mostly positive, albeit a bit mixed, debuting with a rating of 67% fresh on the Tomatometer. Its audience score was significantly higher, currently sitting at 92% fresh. This is officially the highest audience score on the review aggregator website of any movie directed by David Ayer. It’s followed by End of Watch (86%), Fury (84%), Bright (83%), and The Tax Collector (72%), with these titles respectively making up the top five. Ayer’s polarizing Suicide Squad movie iis much more mixed, sitting with a 58% audience score.

Expend4bles writer Kurt Wimmer penned the screenplay for The Beekeeper. The film stars Jason Statham as a former special agent attempting to live a quiet life as a beekeeper, but his past skills are put to good use when his landlord is victimized by a criminal organization, leaving him seeking vengeance. The movie also stars Emmy Raver-Lampman (The Umbrella Academy), Josh Hutcherson (Five Nights at Freddy’s), Minnie Driver (The Riches), Phylicia Rashad (The Cosby Show), and Jeremy Irons (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice).

The Beekeeper Scores High With Audiences

Audiences are enjoying The Beekeeper more than the critics, though there are some reviews that are giving praise to the movie. Chris Bumbray of JoBlo’s Movie Network said that the movie is “way, way better than you think it is. It’s the best possible version of what it’s trying to be.” Thom Ernst of Original Cin added, “It won’t win awards for political correctness but the latest Jason Statham actioner is relentlessly entertaining.” A more glowing review from J Hurtado of ScreenAnarchy also noted, “[A] marvel of economical bombast, and I’m into it. Definitely best viewed with a crowd, The Beekeeper is an early contender for best action film of the year.”

“I’ve always been interested in working with Jason [Statham],” Ayer recently said of why he took on the project, per Collider. “I just saw so much potential and ability in him as an actor. And then here this script comes along, and it just felt like the movies I liked growing up, like 48 Hrs., Beverly Hills Cop, or Die Hard. Just that passion and sensibility, which is really, really, really hard to write and really hard to structure and really hard to pull off. People have no idea how hard it is. So when a script comes along that has those ingredients and has that magic built in, you have to dive on it.”

The Beekeeper is now playing in movie theaters.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes