By Peter Skryzpczak, Staff Reporter.
There’s just something lacking about this movie, maybe something that could really have helped this movie is witty dialogue. The marketing of this movie really seemed to be going for something along the lines of an action stoner comedy, something like Jason Bourne for stoners. But it wasn’t. Not to say it wasn’t funny. I chuckled twice so technically I can’t say it wasn’t funny. It isn’t a downright awful movie either. It hits a lot of marks but they don’t add up to a greater whole. The cinematography is good: shots look great, even when the environment is drab. The movie follows the adventure of Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) and Phoebe (Kristen Stewart) as they attempt to escape the government and their agents. It’s a tad bit unclear.
The acting is fine, but you won’t really be remembering any performances. Having said that, this is now my favorite movie starring Kristen Stewart. The action and the choreography are great but I feel like it would’ve helped to maybe throw some more visually entertaining gags. There are a few gags, but not enough to show the production cared. While the action was great, I would say that is one of the problems. There’s just so much of it. It takes up space that could’ve been used to enhance the story, or could have been removed to make room for some much needed banter.
The characters of Mike and Phoebe and their relationship and situation in the beginning was great. It felt real. It had heart. Again though, I went into this under the assumption of an action comedy so while I liked it, it was also disappointing. Especially since all that gets thrown out the window the second the government secret agent junk comes in. Which also would have been a better opening with that. It would’ve established the two leads before we met them, it wouldn’t have been as jarring an introduction to the secret agent stuff and it would’ve given the beginning a more dire feeling because you would know what awaits the characters in a few days, rather than getting to know the characters only to have stuff go down the second it comes back to them after CIA, FBI mumbo jumbo. It really felt like a different movie once that aspect came into play. Maybe if it owned its ridiculousness, but the problem seems really like it just didn’t know how to do that.
The screenwriter Max Landis went on Twitter to talk his woes on the death of original movies. This movie isn’t original. That’s not to say it steals from other movies, or even that it doesn’t have it’s own original moments but again, it’s just Jason Bourne for stoners. The problem isn’t that original movies are dead, it’s that people mish mash genres looking to create something new but that isn’t original. You don’t need to be completely original, you just need to know your audience and this movie doesn’t know its audience.