It’s a fun movie even when you’re not high
The new movie American Ultra, starring Jesse Eisenberg, is an action packed comedy about a unlucky and lazy stoner named Mike (Eisenberg), whose seemingly small and monotonous life is turned upside down when he discovers that he was part of a government project that made him a highly lethal sleeper agent. In an instance, his secret life surfaces and he must fight alongside his girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart) against a covert government task force sent to eliminate him in order to survive.
To set the scene, this movie starts off with introducing both Mike and Phoebe, showing them to both be stoners who are madly in love and find a lot of enjoyment in sitting around and getting high. Both seem to live normal, lackluster lives at face value but behind the scenes a secret government task force is being assembled to eliminate Mike because he is secretly a government sleeper agent created from an experiment that was shut down many years ago. It isn’t until Mike’s former handler Lasseter (Connie Britton) finds this out that she goes over the head of the CIA and activated Mike in order to save his life. Together, Mike, Lasseter, and Phoebe combine all their efforts in order to fight for all of their survival and turn this government operation on its backside.
On face value, American Ultra didn’t have such a unique story to it. A person who is secretly a sleeper agent and the government is targeting said person to eliminate any threats but then said person fights back to survive. But what makes this movie watchable, and even entertaining at most parts is that is has a unique angle to it and that angle is that the sleeper agent is completely aware that they have superhuman abilities and is totally scared about their own powers. Jesse Eisenberg playing this paranoid stoner killer is just a perfect combination. Mike as a character is very awkward and shy and Jesse has been able to play those roles perfectly so this role was nothing but the same to him. A lot of the comedy seemed to draw from the fact that Mike is freaked out by his own abilities so the pressure was on Jesse to land these jokes and he did this very well. Granted, these jokes were never the laugh out loud sort of jokes but a chuckle is better than nothing. As far as the action goes, there was a fair amount of fighting scenes. Jesse’s character Mike does a lot of high impact stunts and fighting moves that are impressive but to see Jesse doing these moves on screen is also a tad funny to watch. But, what defines a good movie is always the story to it and American Ultra had a very unique story considering the topic and it had a lot of twists and turns that were very unexpected. Throughout the movie you are on the edge of your seat because you just don’t know what might happen next and that is a very good sign when making an action movie of this sort.
Overall, American Ultra was unique, edgy, fun, and entertaining. This movie is for someone looking for a good laugh and to get their blood pumping with adrenaline. Although that might seem like a strange combination, it really works well together and this movie does everything needed to get that effect. American Ultra hits theaters on August 21, 2015.
