Oh, look how pleased she is! The headline you see up there is not only the highlight of my fiscal year, but the best result of my We Are Your Friends movie going experience. Get it? Cause it’s mad bro-y, bruh! And it gets kinda sad, but nah, we stay rad, Brosephine Baker. So is the next seven hundred plus words just a wanking motion? No way, Joltin’ Bro DiMaggio, because in defiance of conventional wisdom, or even necessity, WAYF has a bit more substance than you might think. Sure, almost none, but for real braj, just like…a bit.

WAYF has 20-ish minutes that are satisfying, and heck, I ain’t afraid to say it, pretty fun. Sadly, the remaining 76 or so minutes are a wasteland of brainless shenanigans in line with your worst expectations.  To no one’s surprise, this picture is about one young man’s journey to drag and drop his perfect track. Zac Efron plays our hero, DJ Cole Carter, at the outset of his bildungs-bro-man. We open on the salad days. Tethered to his laptop, dropped out of college, playing the dreaded Thursday, 9 p.m. DJ set in the side room at the local club, Cole and his bros are just trying to get out of San Fernando Valley.

His bros are painful, die cut supporting male archetypes in NEFF tank tops with hastily tacked on snake person names. Mason, Ollie, and ‘Squirrel.’ I guess Braden and Taylor got struck down in the focus group. One is the fast talking schemer, the other is the moody drug dealer and/or aspiring actor, and the third is just a good, sweet, supportive friend. Which is which? Does not matter. WAYF could not do less to invest you in these ding dongs. And I mean that. The only way to further underserve these characters would be to, I don’t know, replace them Hollister pop-up ads?

The story turns when Cole meets Bro-losopher King and Superstar DJ James Reed. He takes a shine to Cole after a pretty sweet PCP scene, and this sets up what is the worst and best parts of this film. James and Cole will, on occasion, talk about music, and this is good. Educational, thoughtful, insightful, WAYF can pull together some genuine sequences about music. There is palpable life breathed into their creative effort, and they even manage to challenge some of the obvious complaints leveled against music that is little more than zeroes and ones. In a couple of artfully rendered sequences, they almost brush up against something relatable and, dare I say it, magical.

The downside of the James Reed storyline is really the thing—and the thinking—that makes everything the worst. Bros, everyone take a knee; we gotta talk. Dylan, headphones off, I need you to listen. We’ve got to find a better way for women in coming-of-age stories. Women are not made more real because they're wounded Stanford dropouts. Women do not need a defense of their honor with fisticuffs because some jackass implies she’s a loose woman (whatever the hell that means). Women are not earthbound goddesses there to serves as fulcrum for your handheld shot post-rave-mid-roll ethereal sexcapade fantasy. Women are not a plot point used to drive bros apart. Women are not swinging hips and full breasts for your slow motion, wide-eyed objectification. Stop. Just stop. Women are, believe it or not, humans. Your peers. Your equals. And I believe once you strive to embrace what really should be a very straight forward reality, everything gets better. Great talk, bros. I believe in you.

Sadly, Emily Ratajkowski, as Sophie, is consumed by all the terribleness above and it swallows what little potential WAYF momentarily has in its reach. But I do like one moment yielded from this slop. James tries to convey to Cole that at some point every life crosses the plain of irreparable, and that’s when you realize this twenty-something EDM fantasy was totally written by a sad 33 year old. And then you watch a bunch of chiseled 20-somethings drunkenly sing classic rock radio staple, “Santeria,” and I realize I’m 1,000 years old.

After that, WAYF tries to fold in some drama, but it’s far too heavy for this vehicle and the story is too far gone. This clumsy tragic turn forges the way for Cole’s inspiration, and our last gasp is finally about the music again. Admittedly, it suckered me in pretty good. Zac Efron puts his all into his final scene, and I’m confident he’ll find his role someday. The kids is gonna be alright, but as he screeches, “Are we ever going to be better than this,” into a microphone during our climactic moment at Summerfest, the answer is maybe, but not today, brah.


—Monte Monreal

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