I have always wondered why certain movies get made, why they were selected from so many thousands. How they broke through the impossible hurdles that any screenwriter would find when he starts to write movies. I am always amazed at some of the bad movies that get made, given the impossible and unfair barriers in this industry starting with even getting an agent.

The movie “American Ultra” is another example of a bad movie that somehow got made. First of all the title American Ultra makes no sense and neither does this movie which is nothing more than a collection of disconnected action scenes and insane ideas that together create one bad mess of a movie. One thing you have to do nowadays to get a movie made is to make something very different, that has never been done before, but what this movie lacks is “weirdness wrapped in a good movie”. Its great to be different and weird but the quality has to be there too and there was no quality in this movie just lots of weird scenes.

I was surprised to see the lead actress Kristen Stewart in this movie proving just how fleeting and fickle top of the box office fame is. Why she would pick this movie to make probably says more about her potential prospects than her acting talent and that is a shame because she deserves to make a better movie than this one, especially after to recently being on top of the world with the “Twilight” movies.

Jessie Eisenberg is also miscast here as an unknowing secret agent/robot who has many action scenes but his physical presence does not support this role and he also deserves to be in a better movie than this one. You have to figure that there was a favor that was paid somewhere to someone to get two top young actors in a movie this bad especially considering that the writer of this screenplay and director are largely unknown.

The Making of a bad movie

Compton California is a typical slum, ghetto within the city of Los Angeles from which spawned the beginnings of rap music in the late 80’s and early 90’s. For the most part rap music is not really music at all but instead is mostly rhymes and rhythms that are loaded with the worst kind of vile language and stories about abusing women, killing police officers, violence and inciting riots. One of the famous songs from the rap group NWA in this movie is actually entitled “F the police”. Clearly songs like this and many more like it incited increased problems within the ghettos in this country with the police.

One of the mysteries this movie unveiled is the insanity of how music that is riddled with the worst kinds of foul language was even allowed to be released considering the restrictions placed on music by the FCC. It seems that Freedom of Speech won out over common sense and Government regulation. There have been some rap songs over the years that are actually good, rapper M&M’s hit in 2002 “Lose Yourself” actually won the academy award for best original song. However the great majority of rap music is horrible and is not music at all and its amazing that this genre of music ever became popular in the first place. What is more amazing is how so many very lucky young men have become extremely wealthy from music this bad much less all the peripheral products including clothing, perfume and even alcohol over the years. One of the main characters in this movie Dr Dre is now actually a billionaire from his rap empire and the Beats music products and high performance headphones. Were it not for rap its clear that many of the real life characters in this movie would now either be in jail or dead and I sure hope they consider themselves some of the very luckiest people on planet earth.

As far as this movie it is well acted, told well and is a good history lesson about rap music in the late 80s and 90s. The actor Paul Giamatti is as usual great in his role as the agent and visionary for this group who took a chance and signed them and was very sympathetic and supportive with their many problems in the police, but later in the move it seemed he was not treating them fairly as far as the money the group was making – nothing new there.

Overall I do recommend this movie, but I think that its too long, close to 2 1/2 hours. I think the same story could have been well told in 2 hours with perhaps less musical numbers.

Writing Biographical Movies

Its taken over 50 years but they have finally made a movie based on this 1960’s series. Well the series was not that good and neither was this movie. This movie looks like it was shot and created in fragments and the audience has no way of knowing what is going on from one scene to the next or how the scenes are connected. I always wonder how movies like this are made and how someone could cut and direct this film, never realizing that the sequence of events are not explained and the reasons why things happen in this movie make in many instances, no sense at all. The film also is trying to make itself look like it was shot in the 60’s which just makes the movie more difficult to watch.

The female lead in this movie, Alicia Vikander is the only positive part of this whole movie because of her acting and presence on screen. She also played a Robot in the movie Ex Machina which is a movie also reviewed in this blog. Alicia Vikander definitely has a great future making movies, she can act and she looks great on screen.

As far as the Man from U.N.C.L.E. avoid this movie because unless your a huge fan of Alicia Vikander its mostly a forgettable waste of 2 hours.

Bad Screenplays