{"id":2435,"date":"2015-08-31T11:39:29","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T18:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/?p=2435"},"modified":"2015-08-31T11:39:29","modified_gmt":"2015-08-31T18:39:29","slug":"american-ultra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/2015\/08\/31\/american-ultra\/","title":{"rendered":"American Ultra"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"American<\/a><\/p>\n

Directed by: Nima Nourizadeh
\nStarring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Connie Britton, Topher Grace, Walton Goggins, John Leguizamo
\nRated: R for strong bloody violence, language throughout, drug use and some sexual content.<\/p>\n

There are some movies whose trailers don\u2019t quite do them justice, and whose theater runs are all-too-short. \u201cAmerican Ultra\u201d seems destined for that fate: It\u2019s a cross between the Bourne movies and a stoner comedy. Our hero has all kinds of amazing combat skills whose origin he doesn\u2019t remember, and people are trying to kill him \u2013 but he\u2019s just some stoner who works at the Cash-and-Carry and is trying to figure out when to propose to his girlfriend. This is not a movie for everybody, but for the right audience, it\u2019s just about perfect.<\/p>\n

Fans of Simon Pegg\u2019s Cornetto Trilogy and other genre mashups will probably feel right at home here. The tone wavers between stoner comedy and black comedy, and once the action starts, it pretty much keeps rolling. There\u2019s plenty of humor, but also some serious emotional content and even bleak commentary on the way government controls how we think.<\/p>\n

Our hero, Mike, is played with a sort of well-meaning confusion by Jesse Eisenberg. He handles the stumbling incompetence and the awesome hand-to-hand combat scenes with equal ease. It\u2019s a little strange to praise the acting in a movie like this, but he\u2019s great. Kristen Stewart has unfortunately been heavily tarred with the \u201cTwilight\u201d brush, but as she\u2019s been showing in her projects since (\u201cSnow White and the Huntsman\u201d), she has a good bit of talent, especially when she has a good director. Nimah Nourizadeh has only made one other movie (\u201cProject X,\u201d about a high school party that goes really wild), but he clearly has some chops.<\/p>\n

The movers and shakers of the film are CIA agents Lasseter (Connie Britton), who headed up the program that made Mike what he is, and Yates (Topher Grace), who runs a newer version of that program and wants to clean house. Lasseter finds herself trying to help a young man who, even after his amazing abilities show up, is a bit too stoned all the time to keep up well. Yates is every \u201cself-starting\u201d management wanna-be familiar to anybody who\u2019s worked in an office or seen enough movies about it. He\u2019s a putz but he has enough power to turn Mike\u2019s life upside down and wreck everything.<\/p>\n

Like \u201cShaun of the Dead\u201d before it, this strange meld of violence and comedy is gory enough to put off folks who might like the comedy side, and comic enough to possibly put off folks who just want an action movie. It definitely earns its R-rating, and while it doesn\u2019t have any guts being pulled out of bodies, a lot of blood packs go off and the improvised weapons Mike uses are often shown in startling detail.<\/p>\n

In short, if you enjoyed \u201cZombieland\u201d and\/or \u201cScott Pilgrim vs. the World\u201d, do not miss this film. If you thought those movies were stupid or confusing and\/or think all pot smokers are morons, see something else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Directed by: Nima Nourizadeh Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Connie Britton, Topher Grace, Walton Goggins, John Leguizamo Rated: R for strong bloody violence, language throughout, drug use and some sexual content. There are some movies whose trailers don\u2019t quite do them justice, and whose theater runs are all-too-short. \u201cAmerican Ultra\u201d seems destined for that fate: It\u2019s a cross between the Bourne movies and a stoner comedy. Our hero has all kinds of amazing combat skills whose origin he doesn\u2019t remember, and people are trying to kill him \u2013 but he\u2019s just some stoner who works at the Cash-and-Carry and is trying to figure out when to propose to his girlfriend. This is not a movie for everybody, but for the right audience, it\u2019s just about perfect. Fans of Simon Pegg\u2019s Cornetto Trilogy and other genre mashups will probably feel right at home here. The tone wavers between stoner comedy and black comedy, and once the<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[62,42,92],"class_list":["post-2435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-comedy","tag-genremash-2","tag-rated-r"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/American-Ultra.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oSX4-Dh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2437,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435\/revisions\/2437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}