American Ultra review: A film that really doesn’t know what kind of movie it wants to be…”
American Ultra review
Jesse Eisenberg re-teams with his Adventureland co-star Kristen Stewart in this new stoner comedy from Max Landis (Chronicle), and director Nima Nourizadeh, who brought us the absolutely terrible party comedy, Project X, back in 2012.
Eisenberg stars as Mike, a shop attendant who spends his days writing graphic novels and getting high at the supermarket where he works. He loves his girlfriend, Phoebe (Stewart), and is on the verge of asking her to marry him when he suddenly becomes a target of the C.I.A. Unbeknown to him, he is as highly trained as them; the ultimate killing machine who has just been ‘activated’ by his former handler.
Stoner comedies are a dime-a-dozen these days, especially from the likes of Seth Rogen and James Franco (Pineapple Express though, is very worthy of positive mention), but with the writing talent of Landis, and the exceptional chemistry between Eisenberg and Stewart, American Ultra has the opportunity to be one of the stand-outs of the early-Autumn. Sadly, this annoying, extremely violent movie can’t make up what kind of film it wants to be.
American Ultra review
The early scenes between the two central characters work really well, and Eisenberg and Stewart do the best they can with the material, but when the over-the-top plot device comes into effect, things start to take a nose-dive. The action is pretty unexciting and dull, and the stoner comedy aspect virtually non-existent as the story progresses. Not even a pumped-up John Leguizamo or a toothless Walton Goggins can save it; or even the bulky presence of Lavell Crawford (who you may remember as Huell in Breaking Bad) in some key scenes early on. There’s also an extended cameo from a well-known, though un-billed, American actor in the third act, which again hardly makes an impact in this misjudged comedy.
While not quite as bad as Nourizdeh’s last movie, American Ultra raises a titter here and there, but that and the aforementioned excellence of Eisenberg and Stewart are not enough to save this annoying, almost part-action/ part-comedy movie, that really tries so very hard to be better than it actually is…
American Ultra review by Paul Heath, September 2015.
American Ultra is released in UK cinemas from Friday 4th September, 2015.
