Producer: Steven Paul   Director: James Bamford   Screenplay: Steven Paul   Cast:  Katherine McNamara, Ian Bohen, Rade Šerbedžija, Anthony Michael Hall, Paul S. Tracey, Dascha Polanco, Hristo Mitzkov, Antony Davidov and Ivo Ariakov   Distributor: Paramount Global/Republic Pictures

Grade:  D+

James Bamford’s “Air Force One Down” is not Wolfgang Petersen’s “Air Force One,” in more ways than one.  The 1997 film was, whatever its flaws, an exciting, polished, if rather absurd thriller; the new movie is a feeble little piece trying unsuccessfully to act like a major action flick, and distinguishing itself from the older movie by adding the “Down” (presumably aping Roland Emmerich’s 2013 Channing Tatum-Jamie Foxx movie “White House Down”) as a titular bonus.

The silly plot devised by Steven Paul is predicated on the notion that recently elected American President Edwards (Ian Bohen) has entered into an energy deal with a fictional oil-rich Eastern European country called Astovia, despite the concerns of some of his political advisors, which are dutifully fended off by Chief of Staff Miller (Paul S. Tracey).  Simultaneously Secret Service head Sam Waitman (Anthony Michael Hall) has invited his niece Allison Miles (Katherine McNamara), an experienced soldier, to join his team, and she agrees, despite writing off Edwards as an over-privileged nonentity.  She’s quickly enlisted to join the contingent of agents that will travel with Edwards to Astovia aboard Air Force One to sign the agreement.

She’s gotten the assignment because unbeknownst to either of her Uncle Sams, Rodinov (Rade Šerbedžija, spelled in the closing credits as Sherbedgia), a rogue Astovian general who considers the deal an insult to his country’s national pride, has planned a takeover of the plane by simply replacing major figures on it—the pilot, several agents, some accompanying journalists—with his own murderous men, all well-armed, with no one noticing the switches.  Despite Allison’s efforts—she excels in hand-to-hand combat, as she demonstrates in several fights—they seize control of the aircraft, sending false data back to flight tracker in the States to keep the US government in the dark about what’s happening.  They also kill Waitman.

In the midst of the chaos aboard the plane, Allison and Edwards parachute into hostile Astovian territory and, after bonding rather intimately, are captured by Rodinov, whose plans have been upended when Vice-President Hansen (Dascha Polanco), an erstwhile opponent of the treaty whom he’d expected to cancel it, now reverses her stand in solidarity with Edwards.  Rodinov is forced to persuade Edwards to film a speech rescinding the pact, something the surprisingly resolute president refuses to do.  Meanwhile Allison, in another demonstration of combat facility, overcomes the muscular guards holding her captive and frees Edwards.  He in turn proves his mettle with both fists and firearms as they deal with Rodinov and his men, making their way to an extraction point where they can be rescued.

Paul and Bamford now play what they apparently consider an ace up their sleeves, a reversal that strains credulity well past the breaking point.  Had the twist involved a new explosion of action, they might have gotten away with it.  Instead it’s a talky, clumsily staged sequence that drains the movie of what little energy it has left. 

You have to admire McNamara’s commitment to her many combat scenes; her monotonous line readings reveal she’s not much of an actress, but she kicks and punches creditably.  And while Bohen is a might stiff, he carries off the president’s transformation from smugness to approachability reasonably well.  Rodinov is just a caricature of a Russian—sorry, Astovian—villain, but with a few smirks and eye-rolls Hall, a teen star for John Hughes many decades ago, shows that he’s not taking the material too seriously.

The movie was obviously made on the cheap—the supposedly cutting-edge equipment used to track the location of the plane looks like an old video-game monitor hauled out of someone’s garage—and the Bulgarian locations are not attractive, nor is Ivan Rangelov’s production design: the White House scenes aren’t terrible, but Rodinov’s compound looks like an abandoned warehouse.  But it’s kind of endearing how the designers and cinematographer Anton Bakarski try to add a feeling of authenticity with modest touches, like zooming in frantically to show the presidential seal on coffee cups or the seat belt buckles on what’s meant to pass for Air Force One.  Except for the fight sequences, the editing by Trevor Mirosh and Robert A. Ferretti bogs down badly in the movie’s second half on the ground, and Rich Walters’ score is a by-the-numbers affair, but they do what they can to instill some energy into what’s, despite its setting in the sky, mostly a mundane affair.

“Air Force One Down” doesn’t exactly crash and burn, but it stalls badly in mid-air and makes a very rocky landing.

Producers: Bill Block, Jason Statham, David Ayer, Chris Long and Kurt Wimmer   Director: David Ayer   Screenplay: Kurt Wimmer   Cast: Jason Statham, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Bobby Naderi, Minnie Driver, David Witts, Michael Epp, Taylor James, Jemma Redgrave, Enzo Cilenti, Phylicia Rashad, Jeremy Irons, Don Gilet and Megan Le   Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios

Grade: D+

Intentionally or not—and if you judge from the résumés of writer Kurt Winner and director David Ayer, probably not—this is an almost perfect parody of Jason Statham movies, by way of the “John Wick” franchise.  But the joke of “The Beekeeper” runs thin fast, and by the close the movie has descended into a riot of imbecility one must see to believe.  (Or, preferably, simply avoid.)

With Wick it was his beloved dog that was the catalyst; with Adam Clay (Jason Statham), it’s his sweet landlady Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad), at whose isolated farmhouse he rents a barn where he raises bees: she’s the only person who’s ever taken care of him, he explains.  Poor Eloise commits suicide after she’s bled dry by a phishing scam, losing not only her own savings but the funds in a charity account she oversees.  Her daughter, FBI Agent Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman), at first considers Clay her mother’s killer, but is persuaded otherwise by the evidence.  He’s released, bent on revenge against those responsible for Eloise’s death.

And he has the tools to succeed.  It turns out Clay’s a retired Beekeeper—an ex-member of an organization of highly trained, single-minded agents tasked with taking action against corruption so great it’s beyond the reach of the regular authorities.  Its origin is never explained, and even Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), the former Director of the CIA, had only tenuous connection to it.  But with only a single call to its Director (Minnie Driver), Clay gets the address of the phishing boiler room that scammed Eloise, and proceeds to blow it up, leaving its surviving manager Mickey Garnett (David Witts) to get an order from his boss, yuppie entrepreneur Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), to take Clay out.  Predictably, his attempt to do so fails miserably.  Verona and her partner Wiley (Bobby Naderi) are, of course, one step behind Clay.

Our hero now proceeds to the premier boiler room of Danforth’s operation in Boston, run by a manager named Rico (Enzo Cilenti) who’s even sleazier than Garnett.  Despite platoons of cops, FBI special forces and a squad of elite troops put together by Westwyld (now head of security for the Danforth family) and led by a gruff guy named Pettis (Michael Epp), Clay not only destroys the place, taking down scads of opponents effortlessly in the process, but forces Rico to give up the name of his boss. Naturally, Verona and Wiley arrive late and are left empty-handed.

But with help from the aptly-named Prigg (Don Gilet), the deputy director of the DOJ, they fortify a beach house where Danforth has fled at Westwyld’s suggestion to seek the protection of his powerful mother (Jemma Redgrave) and her host of bodyguards.  Clay nonetheless infiltrates a party being held there with absurd ease and, offing what appear to be hundreds of opponents, makes his way to young Danforth, taking care of Westwyld and his secret weapon, a maniacal assassin called Lazarus (Taylor James), in the process.  The only question is whether Verona, faced with a choice between shooting him and letting him scuba off into the sunset, will choose justice over law.  You already know the answer; after all, a door has to be left open for a sequel. 

“The Beekeeper” pauses occasionally for Statham to deliver ludicrous pronouncements about protecting the hive or kicking the hornets’ nest, but after its slow-as-molasses expository opening, in which Eloise, though supposedly an erstwhile educator, can barely deal with a laptop keyboard before being swindled online, it becomes a parade of action sequences that grow increasingly preposterous in terms of Clay’s ability to avoid hails of gunfire while dispatching scores of ostensibly expert security people and marksmen.  Except for a single one-on-one face-off with a flamboyantly dressed and aggressively nasty Beekeeper named Anisette (Megan Le), these are choreographed by Ayer, shot by Gabriel Beristain and edited by Geoffrey O’Brien with a depressing lack of thenstyle the “Wick” pictures reveled in; the production design by Ben Munro is drab too, and the background score by David Sardy and Jared Michael Fry blandly generic.

As Clay, Statham is his usual slab of inexpressive dullness, while except for Rashad everyone around him overacts fiercely in contrast.  This doesn’t work for Hutcherson, who despite his shows of twittering nervousness makes a colorless villain, and it’s positively embarrassing in the case of Irons, who appears to have inherited Michael Caine’s penchant for accepting every opportunity to play an effete secondary scumbag offered to him.  But James outdoes everyone else with a show of tough-as-nails bellicosity that would be overdrawn even in a comic book.  The movie misses an obvious topper, though: it fails to conclude the inevitable final fight between him and Statham with Clay ripping off Lazarus’ prominently-displayed prosthetic leg (he lost his real one in a previous face-off with a Beekeeper) and beating him to death with it. In this instance  Wimmer certainly overlooked a perfect opportunity to to take the lunacy to almost-inspired heights. 

Action fanatics may give “The Beekeeper” a pass, but most viewers are likely to feel they’ve been stung by a stinker—or will be laughing too hard to care.