The Beekeeper is being hailed as a return to form for both director David Ayer and star Jason Statham, but screenwriter Kurt Wimmer should also receive a fair amount of praise.
After all, it was his script that gave life to the idea, and all good movies start with a carefully crafted screenplay.
But it also marks Wimmer’s strongest screenplay in a good long while.
In the same vein as Ayer, whose struggles on Suicide Squad need no relitigation, and Statham — who came off a major critical and commercial disappointment with Expend4bles — Wimmer was mostly known for his work writing remakes including Total Recall, Point Break and Children of the Corn.
None of these lit the world on fire, but Wimmer’s work on The Beekeeper hews close to his 2002 science fiction cult classic Equilibrium, both in terms of action and social commentary.