Is Jason Statham better at thinking or punching?

As 2024's Beekeeper arrives, we explore what combination of thinking and punching makes a great Jason Statham movie.

In 2009, comedian Patton Oswalt wrote on his MySpace blog about his newfound love for action star Jason Statham. That love began with 2006’s Crank, where Statham fought an army of thugs while being slowly poisoned, only staying alive by continuously pumping himself full of adrenaline. Every minute of this movie is way out there and wild, and Oswalt celebrates Crank’s insanity and Statham’s commitment to make non-boring movies. 

Statham's imdb.com profile, collectively, is a promise to you, the weary filmgoer. It's a promise that says, "I promise that you will not FOR ONE SECOND be bored during one of my movies. You won't learn shit about the human condition, or feel a collective connection with the brotherhood of man. But if you give me $10, I will fuck an explosion while a Slayer song plays.”

This is why I’m worried about Statham’s new movie Beekeeper. Because it looks like it could be, at least by Jason Statham standards, kinda boring?

I’m going to fight people, but first I’m going to think deep thoughts about bees

In Beekeeper, Statham is both an actual beekeeper and a “Beekeeper,” a super secret agent that maintains order and balance in the world. He’s happy in his beekeeping (small b) ways until someone he cares about is taken for all she’s worth by scam artists. He then takes his fight up the ladder as he aims to, according to the trailer, “expose the corruption” and “fight the system.” 

There’s plenty of Statham-y stuff happening in the trailer—fighting, punching, looking cool while wearing a turtleneck and suit, your standard fare. But much of the trailer is about Statham feeling big feelings about his life and those who care about him. On top of that, his status as a “Beekeeper” means he WANTS to be a good guy who works to “protect the hive” from danger. 

This feels cumbersome. I worry that we’ll have to sit through a lot of explanations about what beekeepers are and why they’re necessary, and perhaps watch Statham stare out a rainy window while he collects his thoughts. Personally, I’d rather watch Statham kick sharks in the nose, fight while hanging from helicopters (see below) or keep himself alive by attaching a car battery to his tongue.

Am I right to be concerned that a more-thinking-heavy Statham experience will be less than great? Is Statham at his best when he’s thinking or when he’s punching? To test my assumptions, we turn to MATH!

Introducing the Jason Statham Continuum

Like any great artist, Jason Statham plays to his strengths—his physicality, his twisted-steel-dipped-in-cinnamon voice, and the 1,001 intense glares he deploys to communicate what kind of ass-kicking he’s about to roll out. Few action stars come close to his ability to make fights look kinetic and exciting while also being able to pull off the “convincingly looks dangerous yet charming” vibe.

For instance, he makes the opening of Furious 7 work because it’s entirely believable that this man could take down 12 different swat teams while looking that dapper.

His performances utilize his skills to its fullest, and for the sake of simplicity, each portrayal exists on a continuum between “Thinking” and “Punching.” While all Statham movies contain some amount of both, those on the left side of the continuum have much more thinking—for example, 2015’s Wild Card is a vivid character study about an impulsive gambler who’s too wrapped up in his fears and insecurities to make it out of Las Vegas. There’s very little fighting, and lots of Statham thinking deep thoughts.

In the middle, with a balance of thinking and punching, are your “Glaring” and “Smirking” performances. If you like your Statham breaking arms with a few good zingers, then your butter zone is right there in the middle. 2015’s Spy, with his delightfully self-aware performance as a secret agent, is the best of the bunch from this center section.

Toward the punching end of the continuum—well, you get it. These are movies where Jason Statham punches a lot of people. At maximum punch is 2009’s Crank 2: High Voltage, where Statham must keep electrocuting himself to sustain a madcap race for revenge against a mob boss who stole his heart out of his chest.

Get the Table!

I scored all 42 Jason Statham movies on a scale from Thinking to Punching, and compared how each category did with critics, audiences and box office returns. All numbers courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes. Box office results in millions of dollars.

Not surprisingly, Statham has spent most of his career punching people. His 22 punching movies have the highest average box office return ($98.1 million). While critics don’t always love his punching movies, both critics and audiences prefer movies with more punching than thinking. Way to play to your strengths, my dude.

Sadly, no one likes a full-on Statham thinking movie—not critics, not audiences, not box offices. Additionally, everyone loves a smirking Statham, which suggests he could be making more money if he matched up with Melissa McCarthy more often.

The data suggests that I’m right to worry about Statham thinking too much in his movies. But if Beekeeper falls anywhere to the right of maximum thinking, I should be very entertained.

They’ll get my money for this one, no matter what. Because as Patton Oswalt said:

After CRANK, Mr. Statham can count on my $10 every time he makes a movie. If someone figures out how to make a movie for $8, and it stars Jason Statham, then they're guaranteed a $2 profit.