Review of American Ultra (2015) by Alnissa S — 13 Sep 2015

American Ultra is the second film directed by Nima Nourizadeh (Project X), and written by Chronicle's Max Landis. It is a comic attempt at a Bourne Identity style action thriller with added substance abuse subplots. The trailers and posters mainly suggest an adult comedy with gunfights (much like Pineapple Express), but the actual film is light on laughter but heavy on gruesome bloody action scenes. This unbalanced mixture of genres has made the film lack an identity and possibly lose the target audience in mind. It is too quirky to be a satisfying action flick and too straight faced to be a stoner comedy. Too violent and drug-heavy for teenagers and too conservative and idiotic for adults. That being said, it isn't horrible or offensive and might work as a laid back Sunday afternoon viewing on Netflix!

Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg), is a perpetually stoned young man with a job at a grocery store that seems to have no customers. He lives with his pothead girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart), whom he wants to marry, and in his clearer moments he's trying to find a way to propose. Mike is so wasted most of the time that it doesn't seem odd to him that he has no memories of his childhood, or how he ended up in the ratty West Virginia town where he lives, or anything else. There's a reason for this: He's a remnant of an old C.I.A. experiment to create super agents, and he was placed there, memory-free, when the experiment was shelved. He begins to figure this out when an agency bureaucrat (Topher Grace) decides to clear the case and sends assassins to kill him. That awakens Mike's long-buried training, and he starts to fight back against the government agents.

The film suffers from its dull pacing and takes at least 15 minutes to get properly started. It has a fun and clever premise but the execution is neither fun or original. It misses several opportunities to poke fun at spy movie cliches or at least comment on them. It shows its cards too early by giving numerous clues on what is secretly going on in a very unsatisfactory way and never leaves room for any surprises. We will very quickly figure out the big twists three steps ahead of the game and that is never a good sign for a movie like this. The film is also not confident enough to let the audience figure out some of the plot points, and feels the need to spoon-feed information every chance it gets. What's worse is, there are few to no laughters throughout the film, so it ultimately becomes a somewhat entertaining action flick and nothing else.

The actors do the best they can with the script but their characteristics are shallow and unoriginal. Jesse Eisenberg is quirky as usual but we don't get to spend enough time with his character to truly care about him. Kristen Stewart has been the butt of critics and columnists since she became an A-list star with the Twilight series. She never stood out as someone with any acting talent what so ever, and her off-screen persona made matters worse. But she's been surprising everyone with her later performances such as her brilliant role in The Clouds of Sils Maria, and her strong presence opposite Julianne Moore in Still Alice. She is fine in the role, but again, the character is too underwritten to give her a chance to do something special. Their transition into action heroes is entertaining and enjoyable but the film rarely gives them enough scenes to be effective in the overall narrative.

American Ultra is an undeniably stupid and forgettable action comedy, but it will surely become a "guilty pleasure" hit for many viewers. It certainly doesn't work as a comedy, but it is watchable as a violent spy thriller. The action is crude and fast paced with a skinny stoner character doing the same things that all the beefed up super-soldiers are doing in modern movies! Will it become a cult favourite ? It's too early to tell, but it will surely find most of its audience on home entertainment.