Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. It would seem that summer has finally unleashed its fiery tendrils, as I am currently laboring under an oppressive, obnoxiously humid heat that has reduced my cat to a wilting blob on the sofa. Nonetheless, I remain steadfast in my dedication to bringing you only the freshest film reviews, be they features of yesteryear or alluring new productions. This week we actually caught up on a variety of recent films, checking out the latest escapades of the reliable Jason Statham while also continuing our journey through the world of Dragon Ball. Much screening time has also been dedicated to my housemate’s rampage through Critical Role’s second campaign, an adventure that has increasingly played like a cautionary tale regarding the role of the dungeon master. I might actually write up some thoughts about that campaign as a whole once we’ve reached the end, but for now, let’s break down the week in films!
First up this week was The Beekeeper, Jason Statham’s latest action vehicle. The film is pretty obviously Statham’s attempt at a John Wick, with Statham subbing in as our former assassin now committed to a quiet life, literally tending to bees from the garage of a townhouse he rents from a kindly old lady. When credit scammers steal everything from his gentle landlord, Statham sets out to make things right, trading in one beekeeping suit for another as he returns to the role of “The Beekeeper,” an extrajudicial government operative designed to protect the hive by any means necessary.
Honestly, “John Wick but it’s Jason Statham” would already have my butt in the seat absent any other known variables. Statham is a charming lead performer and an imposing physical presence, still throwing his weight around with grace and ferocity after decades of putting in the work, committing to every role with his mixture of lopsided smiles and irrefutable death stares. Watching him set fire to noxious call centers in between bouts with other assassins, all while spouting a variety of preposterous bee puns? Sign me the fuck up.
The Beekeeper delivers on everything it promises, offering plenty of hard-hitting fights and righteous retribution against some of the worst scum on earth. Statham is in fine form, absolutely failing to convince with his allegedly American accent, but more than making up for that through his commitment to the grizzled yet ridiculous Beekeeper persona. We also run into other Beekeepers, but none of them seem to actually tend to bees, or to say shit “I have to protect the hive” every thirty seconds – a contrast that only makes Statham’s commitment to the bit all the more endearing. An easy recommendation for any action fans, and a fine addition to Statham’s laudable B-movie canon.
We then checked out The Beast Must Die, a ‘70s horror feature about an avid hunter (Calvin Lockhart) who assembles an eclectic group of strangers at his estate, certain that one of them is actually a werewolf. Through the three days and nights of the full moon, Lockhart provokes his guests into revealing their true nature, spying on their affairs and waiting patiently with rifle in hand. And at the end of this trial, the audience themselves are asked to offer their conclusions, through the inclusion of a “werewolf break” wherein each of the suspects are considered in turn.
The Beast Must Die’s gimmick is both its raison d’etre and its undoing, as forcing the film to keep every suspect in the running ultimately means that none of them are conclusively defined as responsible. As I say basically every chance someone foolishly gives me the opportunity, mystery narratives are mostly just parlor tricks, smoke and mirrors that maintain tension largely through the way the audience’s attention is misdirected. By including the audience within the mystery-solving process, the paucity of actual substance here is laid bare; like in most mystery narratives, you could construct an equally reasonable case for every suspect, making the actual conclusion less of an “ah, of course that’s who it was” revelation than a “sure, it could be that person” concession.
Fortunately, despite its halfhearted gimmick and lack of meaningful scares, The Beast Must Die is at least furnished with an impressive stable of top shelf actors. Lockhart himself drives the energy exceedingly well, capturing both the charisma and the mania needed to embark on such a preposterous adventure. And among the suspects, we’re blessed with such luminaries as Peter Cushing playing the world’s leading werewolfologist, as well as Michael Gambon as an internationally acclaimed pianist. With such convincing bit players furnishing the drama, and a reasonable scattering of werewolf hunts distributed throughout, The Beast Must Die is at least a diverting, if not genuinely recommendable viewing experience.
Next up was Warriors of Future, a 2022 action scifi feature with a premise that’s somehow both overwrought and underwritten. Beset by perpetually worsening environmental conditions, humanity decides the only viable response is building Skynet, which in this case refers to a series of vast sky canopies that will allegedly rehabilitate the earth’s atmosphere. But then! A rogue meteor smashes through one of the canopies, unleashing a giant plant monster that seems intent on taking over the planet. That seems like bad news, but as it turns out, the plant is actually even better than Skynet at restoring the atmosphere – thus facilitating a military mission to halt but not kill the plant, so as to let it peacefully assist in the rehabilitation. Or at least, that’s what humanity plans on doing – until the robots they’re traveling alongside suddenly betray them! Who can guess what will happen next!?
Warriors of Future’s plot is a nonsensical grab bag of Stuff Happening, events proceeding in sequence with no logic beyond “let’s steal as many scenes as we can from Aliens and Ghost in the Shell.” Characters have no coherent or meaningful motivation, military operations make no sense, and action scenes are driven by ambiguous, discordant objectives that fail to offer any sense of escalation or consequence. The CG used for the robots and aliens is actually quite impressive, but with basically no narrative tissue to attach to, the film proceeds mostly like a series of context-free Gears of War cutscenes. An easy skip.
We then caught up on our Dragon Ball viewing with the franchise’s latest film, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. Picking up perhaps a year or so after Super’s Tournament of the Gods, the film sees a revived Red Ribbon Army led by Commander Magenta recruiting Dr. Hedo, the supergenius grandson of Dr. Gero. Proceeding under the mistaken impression he is constructing heroic androids to fight Bulma’s army of evildoers, Dr. Hedo sets to work building some new enemies for our old friends, culminating in a supersized version of Cell himself.
Word of warning for this one – you know that disappointing CG Toei leaned on for the climaxes of Battle of the Gods and Broly? Yeah, that’s the look of this entire film, and they still haven’t reached the point where it’s anything but a huge disappointment relative to Dragon Ball’s iconic traditional animation. But to be honest, I’ve never found Dragon Ball’s fight scenes particularly interesting; what I’m here for are the goofy sitcom family dynamics, and Super Hero fortunately offers a heaping helping of that.
With Goku and Vegeta off doing some addle-brained sparring nonsense, Super Hero instead focuses on the true heroes of the universe: Piccolo and Bulma, the ever-reliable stalwarts who always end up doing the unglamorous real work of any given arc. Watching Piccolo bicker about babysitting duties, Bulma rag on the consistent idiocy of saiyans, and Gohan juggle professional aspirations versus familial duties all serves as winning affirmations of how tight this lopsided family has grown, offering a welcome reprise of Dragon Ball Super’s smaller-stakes pleasures. If you can make peace with the CG, there’s a lot to enjoy here.
