Movie review: ‘American Ultra’

Jesse Eisenberg usually plays geeky and studious, not gallant and studly. He’s Mark Zuckerberg, not Jason Statham.

But he gets to stride both sides of the street in the disposable yet mildly enjoyable American Ultra, a riff on the spy-movie formula where tongues are kept firmly in cheek.

He’s Mike Howell, a stoner working at a convenience store in a small West Virginia town who has little going for him except his girlfriend, Phoebe (Kristen Stewart), and the comic book he’s creating about a simian astronaut (Apollo Ape). Then his life gets a lot more interesting — and much more violent — when the CIA puts a hit out on him.

As it turns out, he has had a much more colorful life than most would believe, though he doesn’t remember any of it. Now, one high-ranking agent, the ambitious Adrian (Topher Grace), wants him out of the picture and another (Connie Britton) is trying to keep him alive. Meanwhile, when he’s attacked, Mike finds out he has killer kung-fu and action-movie skills he didn’t even know he had.

Director Nima Nourizadeh, working from a script by Max Landis, keeps things moving briskly, though nothing here is as crazily over-the-top as in Nourizadeh’s last film, Project X (2012), a movie about an out-of-control party that inspired a spate of out-of-control parties. Project X had a vibrant, memorable look, especially in those party scenes, and there’s nothing as striking here.

But the vision of one of the government’s bad guys named Laugher (excellent character actor Walton Goggins, Justified) trying to talk after his front teeth are beaten out of his mouth by Mike counts as one of American Ultra’s small pleasures. Speaking of beatings, American Ultra is quite violent, despite the overall jocular tone.

It just goes to show that, just because it’s an Eisenberg movie, it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to get Zuckerberg and Statham.

This story was originally published August 20, 2015 at 12:07 AM with the headline "Movie review: ‘American Ultra’."