It really deserves its own thread, so instead of complaining about it in the Random Movie Discussions thread, I guess I’ll dive in!
They Cloned Tyrone: I fricken loved it.
I especially enjoyed the pimp and ho comedy act. I’m a sucker for Jamie Foxx just in general (do yourself a favor and watch Collateral again when you get the time) and Teyonah Parris was absolutely brilliant. I guess I have to expedite watching “If Beale Street Could Talk” now.
I’m also a big fan of conspiracies and underground lairs, and I like that it was able to go from jokes to being quietly devastating.
Keifer Sutherland is absolutely abysmal - that was the only part of the movie that bombed for me, and I guess it stands out more because the rest was really enjoyable.
I’m not sold on Jon Boyega in general, but this was a role that definitely suited him well.
I also wanna give props to whoever played that one henchman. The guy who asks Fontaine if he needs some water when they investigate the first entrance, and then forgets he needs to fire a warning shot in the convenience store, and then goes straight to the phone and tries to get a bunch of chicks to come down to the secret lab and hang out while they’re raiding it. I love that character.
The soundtrack was exceptionally danceable as well. Real good!
Ha ha, we have the exact opposite opinions on Jamie Foxx and Jon Boyega, although I also think he was good in this :)
It’s an interesting contrast, because he’s really acting in Collateral. In this one he’s using his comedy chops, and I think those are pretty fricken well honed.
I liked this one a lot. Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris were fantastic. I’m a big Boyega fan, but he didn’t get to do a lot in this other than brood and look menacing. I wasn’t as bothered by Keifer Sutherland. I thought he did ok. I thought the hooker hotline montage was genius.
This came out the same week as Barbie and Oppenheimer, and it was easily my favorite of the three. I was a little wary at first because of the brazen stereotypes. But they were deployed cleverly — and, well, spoilers. I think this is the most I’ve liked Boyega, and possibly the best Foxx since Collateral. The baddies were bland, but I think that was part of the point? Or maybe I’m just engaging in some special pleading because I liked the rest of the movie so much.
Yeah, they were clearly not the main event, but I don’t think that excuses Keifer Sutherland’s performance. It wasn’t an easy bit of writing to deliver, I thought it was “Tyler Durden written poorly”* but he still dropped it in my opinion.
I was thinking “If John Goodman had been in that role, he would’ve fricken nailed it”. Or any other very white male who can do menace without being silly.
I was also very indifferent to the final monologue. One of my peeves is dumb villains. To me, the smarter the villain is, the higher the stakes are, and the more I’m invested, but it was a pretty dumb reason to do what he did, and the movie didn’t have time to really get into it.
But I did think Jon Boyega aquitted himself well, and my way of excusing that monologue was thinking “This is a riff on exploitation movies, so I’m pretty sure the villains aren’t supposed to be geniuses”.
*I did think the writing was very good apart from that. It’s got me watching the Creed movies!
