FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

shadow_blade-89459 "American Ultra" (2015) is a hilarious action comedy that plays on the "what ifs" of someone with a creative imagination. The film is about stoner, Mike Howell, played by Jesse Eisenberg, as he struggles to understand his newly activated abilities as a sleeper agent as the CIA tries to kill him. Nothing he knows seems to make sense anymore including the love of his life, his girlfriend, Phoebe Larson played by Kirsten Stewart. This film made me relive the crazy undercover agent thoughts I had as a child because it has very silly, childlike storyline that proves to be entertaining.Though this film has an enjoyable story, I couldn't help but notice the visual effects were a little hit and miss. For example, all the explosions and blood on the actors appeared realistic, but some of the impact splatters looked amateur. It seems almost as if all the effects budget was spent on the explosions, but not enough was put toward the digital effects. If the audience can get past those minor miscues, this film is worth viewing.

maherbo That movie was pure entertainment for me. The pace was fast, with no lengthy useless scenes. The story is without real suspense and has nothing we haven't seen before, but it doesn't matter.If this action movie was done with a serious tone, it would stink as it's not believable. But it was done with a light humor side, giving a comic book effect, without going too much into the absurd. You don't roll on the floor laughing, it just brings a smile on your face from time to time and that is perfect.At some point, the violence is very graphic, but I thought it was well done.It reminded me of TRUE LIES (1994) a little bit, but a little bit darker violence-wise. Not the same story, but a similar mix of action and comedy.I really appreciated this movie.

dissident320 I had sort of ignored this movie. I had seen the trailers and knowing it starred the wonderfully charismatic Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart had kept me away. But it has remained on Netflix so my curiosity got the best of me.It's not terrible but perplexingly devoid of fun. Casting Jesse as a stoner sleeper agent seemed to be a opportunity for him to play against his usual type. But they never really do anything with it. He smokes pot, he does some fighting but not much. Most of the movie just plods along with a tremendous amount of exposition with other characters. Connie Britton is essentially a plot device and Topher Grace is the scrappy CIA guy trying to climb the ladder. He calls her a lot of names.This movie is quite violent which would be fine if they were going for dark comedy. But the tone comes across as just a straight up action movie. It never goes goofy enough to be a comedy or any over the top action to make it fun.Boring leads and a mostly boring plot. Topher Grace seems to be having fun but operates pretty far out of the tone of the rest of the movie. Overall this movie is bad without being bad enough to laugh at.

Ayal Oren Saw it last night on TV, and it did make me think. The plot is obviously silly and filled with huge holes and contradictions. But this is part of the territory of the sub-genre it so evidently parodies. That is the secret agent who was trained into a super human killing machine, combined with the damaged start. In a way it's a satirical version of La Femme Nikita, with hints toward Jason Bourne and The Long Kiss Goodnight.So, that's what the movie parodies, but if it didn't have any satirical aim, the whole thing would've been a waste of time money and talent, and if one misses the satire, that what one is left with. Well I find it to be a rather pointed satire of the Bureaucratic new attitude to spying, in which people are assets and life or death are simple side effects of managerial decision.The entire thing is a very tricky combination, since the plot is riddled with problems, as I already mentioned. But Jesse Eisenberg delivers a fantastic performance as the stoner who's a killing machine and doesn't know it. Topher Grace is also brilliant as a bureaucrat who got promoted into a position of power he doesn't understand, and still looks at the world as one big administrative system which bureaucracy can control and manage. The others perform their roles all right, but without Eisenberg and Grace the whole construction crumbles as a house of cards. With the two of them it's a fairly enjoyable experience.