Late August is like detention for big budget pictures, especially ones with seemingly everything going for them. American Ultra, befitting its slacker demeanor, has been held after class while the rest of its more sterling summer compatriots have exited the box office. It was a damn good summer. Opening with the exceptional Mad Max: Fury Road and closing with cash cow Jurassic World, Hollywood must be feeling itself. So what does one lackluster stoner action-comedy’s quiet shuffle off the coil matter? More than you might think.
American UItra will be eviscerated by critics and barely bob on the surface before being swallowed by box office indifference. This is somewhat deserved, but it’s fascinating for an entirely different set of reasons. First off, this is a Max Landis script, and after his 2012 semi-hit Chronicle, he’s become the geek boy writer de jour.Chronicle and American Ultra were non-franchise ideas, and he’s since been attached to a Frankenstein ‘reimagining’ and a Superman property. The film stars Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg who have had relatively good 12 month stretches offering up Clouds of Sils Maria and The End of the Tour respectively. You’ve got Bill Pullman, Tony Hale, Connie Britton, and Topher Grace floating around in there. What does it all mean?
Let’s start American Ultra's grim missteps. First and foremost, Topher Grace is absolutely terrible. He plays our smug, one-dimensional heavy and you want to punch him in the face for all the wrong reasons. It’s not because his character engenders your contempt, but because you can see him acting, and he does so poorly. One dimensionality is something that dogs this picture. Everyone is offered few opportunities for growth, and the story turns on events woefully telegraphed the first 20 minutes.
More so than anything else, I’m not sure America will adore a film where fetishized violence—by way of secret CIA programs—meets stoner romance. American Ultra feels a tad hacked up. It’s unclear whether the big wigs at Lionsgate (who must stare longingly at the Mocking Jay pt. 2 release date) intervened, but it certainly feels like an appendage or two is missing.
American Ultra is sloppy, cynical, half-baked, and this is why I think it will ultimately be redeemed. The picture vibes with, or is at least vying for, the blood drenched indie action romances of the 90’s. Where it never turns up the humanity of a Grosse Pointe Blank or captures the impossible (you’re so) cool of a True Romance, considerable manic charm is intact. I like how uglied up the film lets itself get. Some of the choreographed action is pretty crisp. And more so than anything else, I think it’s sweet. I wish I had this v chill girlfriend who gets me and likes to, you know, just puff up off a beat…
The unquestioned strength of the film is Eisenberg and Stewart as Mike and Phoebe. They articulate something about young, adrift couples tethered together by vague ambition, small town dynamics, and bong rips. Landis taps into realities of this seemingly dead end existence. One moment in particular, where Mike is going on about a new development in his never to be realized comic series and Phoebe implores him to write it down, he replies with, “I just like talking about it.” This I get.
Eisenberg captures the wide-eyed shock of a pothead who out of nowhere has become a secret weapon. Stewart channels the gentle devotion required of someone willing to love beyond panic attacks and cluelessness. And when American Ultra delivers on a payoff building since the beginning, well…it landed with this big dummy. It all sways and hiccups about like an overly long story a super stoney couple is trying to tell, and I mean that in the most endearing way possible. Also, the soundtrack is really fun. The Pentagons, “To Be Loved?” Paired with an incongruent action piece? Gimme.
So, what, an average movie with high wattage star power staggered into the gate at the end of summer?
Look, American Ultra is far from brilliant, but it will be punished. An exponentially more boneheaded Jurassic World will enjoy rails greased with pretty-fun-kinda-good-for-what-it-is rhetoric as it shuttles toward another installment. A billion dollar rehashed franchise gets a pass and a movie taking a sincere swing and fouling off the ball is gutted? I do not understand. But as four of the top five grossing films this summer are reboots or sequels the results speak for themselves. If Pixar (Inside Out) was in an off-cycle year it would be five for five. This is our future now? Yikes. If you need me I’ll be somewhere fussing about the retinal projected trailer for Jurassic Solar System still rooting for the bad kids at the back of the class.
—Monte Monreal
American UItra will be eviscerated by critics and barely bob on the surface before being swallowed by box office indifference. This is somewhat deserved, but it’s fascinating for an entirely different set of reasons. First off, this is a Max Landis script, and after his 2012 semi-hit Chronicle, he’s become the geek boy writer de jour.Chronicle and American Ultra were non-franchise ideas, and he’s since been attached to a Frankenstein ‘reimagining’ and a Superman property. The film stars Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg who have had relatively good 12 month stretches offering up Clouds of Sils Maria and The End of the Tour respectively. You’ve got Bill Pullman, Tony Hale, Connie Britton, and Topher Grace floating around in there. What does it all mean?
Let’s start American Ultra's grim missteps. First and foremost, Topher Grace is absolutely terrible. He plays our smug, one-dimensional heavy and you want to punch him in the face for all the wrong reasons. It’s not because his character engenders your contempt, but because you can see him acting, and he does so poorly. One dimensionality is something that dogs this picture. Everyone is offered few opportunities for growth, and the story turns on events woefully telegraphed the first 20 minutes.
More so than anything else, I’m not sure America will adore a film where fetishized violence—by way of secret CIA programs—meets stoner romance. American Ultra feels a tad hacked up. It’s unclear whether the big wigs at Lionsgate (who must stare longingly at the Mocking Jay pt. 2 release date) intervened, but it certainly feels like an appendage or two is missing.
American Ultra is sloppy, cynical, half-baked, and this is why I think it will ultimately be redeemed. The picture vibes with, or is at least vying for, the blood drenched indie action romances of the 90’s. Where it never turns up the humanity of a Grosse Pointe Blank or captures the impossible (you’re so) cool of a True Romance, considerable manic charm is intact. I like how uglied up the film lets itself get. Some of the choreographed action is pretty crisp. And more so than anything else, I think it’s sweet. I wish I had this v chill girlfriend who gets me and likes to, you know, just puff up off a beat…
The unquestioned strength of the film is Eisenberg and Stewart as Mike and Phoebe. They articulate something about young, adrift couples tethered together by vague ambition, small town dynamics, and bong rips. Landis taps into realities of this seemingly dead end existence. One moment in particular, where Mike is going on about a new development in his never to be realized comic series and Phoebe implores him to write it down, he replies with, “I just like talking about it.” This I get.
Eisenberg captures the wide-eyed shock of a pothead who out of nowhere has become a secret weapon. Stewart channels the gentle devotion required of someone willing to love beyond panic attacks and cluelessness. And when American Ultra delivers on a payoff building since the beginning, well…it landed with this big dummy. It all sways and hiccups about like an overly long story a super stoney couple is trying to tell, and I mean that in the most endearing way possible. Also, the soundtrack is really fun. The Pentagons, “To Be Loved?” Paired with an incongruent action piece? Gimme.
So, what, an average movie with high wattage star power staggered into the gate at the end of summer?
Look, American Ultra is far from brilliant, but it will be punished. An exponentially more boneheaded Jurassic World will enjoy rails greased with pretty-fun-kinda-good-for-what-it-is rhetoric as it shuttles toward another installment. A billion dollar rehashed franchise gets a pass and a movie taking a sincere swing and fouling off the ball is gutted? I do not understand. But as four of the top five grossing films this summer are reboots or sequels the results speak for themselves. If Pixar (Inside Out) was in an off-cycle year it would be five for five. This is our future now? Yikes. If you need me I’ll be somewhere fussing about the retinal projected trailer for Jurassic Solar System still rooting for the bad kids at the back of the class.
—Monte Monreal
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