From Chronicle writer Max Landis and Project X director Nima Nourizadeh comes American Ultra, starring America’s sweethearts, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart. I’m actually excited to see Landis and Nourizadeh unmoored from the found-footage conceit, or at least I would be if this didn’t look like Bourne for tweens. It’s crazy to me that while quicksand subplots and anchovies-on-pizza jokes have all but disappeared, the amnesia hook is going stronger than ever.
American Ultra is a fast-paced action comedy about Mike [Eisenberg], a seemingly hapless and unmotivated stoner whose small-town life with his live-in girlfriend, Phoebe [Stewart], is suddenly turned upside down. Unbeknownst to him, Mike is actually a highly trained, lethal sleeper agent. In the blink of an eye, as his secret past comes back to haunt him, Mike is thrust into the middle of a deadly government operation and is forced to summon his inner action-hero in order to survive. [Lionsgate]
Oh good, I always like it when there are enough jokes not to take any of the action seriously and enough action that no one has to commit too hard to a joke. Anyway, I hope there’s more to it than this, because “what if we cut The Kingsman for MTV” isn’t working for me.
Opens August 21st.