American Ultra: Directed by Nima Nourizedeh, Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, and Kristen Stewart9/7/2015 It has been a good number of hours since I have seen American Ultra, and my opinion of it has been lowering within that time. I had a good time watching it—that was evident to me in the theater, yet as I comb over what little I remember, I keep thinking of one thing. American Ultra ultimately fails as an entertaining film because it tries to walk the fine line of being a cringe worthy, and ugly film, and being a fun somewhat comic booky film. That’s actually much the same with it’s characters. A few of them I quite liked including Mike (Jesse Eisenberg) the main character. He’s a weak, soft spoken seeming guy at first, and even when he get’s outed as a sleeper agent and starts to brutally kill people, he is still that soft spoken guy. His girlfriend, named Phoebe, played by Kristen Stewart, is also a great character. She’s the more reasonable, and is a good foil for Mike. This makes their chemistry flawless, and actually really sweet. However then the characters fall apart, and for the most part become that “ugly” I was talking about. John Leguizamo shows up, and is not really doing anything. Connie Britain is given stuff to do, but it’s not all that good. She’s not given anything charming to say or do. And then there’s Topher Grace. When watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I realized that the reason why I hated it was because the person who played Umbridge in it was so good at being an asshole that it brought the movie down. THIS IS TOPHER GRACE IN AMERICAN ULTRA! He shows up, and kills the entire thing...by being a perfect asshole. For all the charm that comes with the two leads, Grace does a lovely job of getting rid of it. It’s the same with the action too. On one hand the cartoonishly violent action is great, and exhilerating. There’s a scene inside of a grocery store that is so well filmed, and crazy that I guarantee you will have fun seeing it. Also, the fact is Jesse Eisenberg can in fact pull off action, and does it hilariously. He’s a reserved actor, and to see him go all berserker on some people is something that has to be seen. The same goes for Kristen Stewart. You know, and the fact is that all the action is actually pretty great, but some of it does get just “ugly.” There’s a cut in the film that has someone getting choked that just about soured the entire thing for me. That’s all I can really say about American Ultra. I realize this is bare bones, but so is the movie. It seems mostly concerned with getting from action scene to action scene, but it still does it interestingly, if not nicely sometimes. I liked Eisenberg and Stewart quite a bit, but they can’t save this. I give American Ultra a 5 out of 10.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archive
December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |