American Ultra

I can't imagine what kind of roles I would have gotten had I actually chased my dream and made it to Hollywood. At best I could see myself as the token Black friend of Ben Savage on Boy Meets World or maybe even one of the Cobra Kai who actually felt sorry for Daniel when he got repeatedly beaten up in The Karate Kid. But who knows, I could've been the star of the episode where Topanga finally gets jungle fever and has to deal with racism for the first time or I could've been the one who makes out with Ali with an I in the corner while Bobby nearly breaks Daniel's leg in the All Valley Karate Tournament. Either way, I would've been breaking down barriers and would certainly have been way ahead of my time in my field.

Ok so neither of those would have ever really happened (on screen anyway) but I did get a date from this random girl who once saw a pic of me in a Dell flyer. Granted, she was a ghetto massage therapist who tried to order a frozen strawberry daiquiri at a fine dining restaurant, but hey, it was a start.

The point is, I would have been more than comfortable with my place in Hollywood and would've gladly stayed in my lane to prolong my career. But sadly this is something that the talented but annoying Jesse Eisenberg has yet to do as he continues to slowly run his career into the ground by taking roles that don't quite fit his personality or his skill set. I give him credit for trying to branch out and challenge himself but he needs to realize that his wheelhouse is in playing the snappy and sharp-tongued introvert who everyone is afraid to test intellectually. This is why he received so much love for his role in The Social Network, playing the genius yet cunning Mark Zuckerberg fit him perfectly. No one sees him as Lex Luthor or the stoner who is really a dormant government weapon who is just waiting to be activated.

Those are roles better reserved for Keanu Reeves. Sure he's not that great of an actor but everyone loves him so much that it doesn't really matter. Keanu could play Obama in the next presidential biopic and it would easily open up as number one in the box office that weekend!

Well in American Ultra, Eisenberg plays a whiny stoner who works at a convenient store and has little to no ambition. The only thing that seems to drive him is his love for writing a comic book series about a space monkey who gets into random adventures. He has panic attacks every time he tries to leave the city and his only real friend comes in the form of is his drug dealer Rose (John Leguizamo) who likes to go to strip clubs at 8 in the morning.

But somehow this loser manages to have a cute and loving girlfriend (Kristen Stewart) who sticks by his side in spite of all of his glaring faults. Well one day Matt (Eisenberg) realizes that Phoebe is the only real thing he has going for him so he comes up with an elaborate plan to propose to his loyal girlfriend. He has everything set in place to do just that, until the C.I.A. comes in and ruins it all by sending a couple of their goons to inexplicably take him out.

Well unfortunately for them, something inside of Matt is triggered once he's under attack and all of a sudden he becomes this deadly killer. He is understandably freaked out by this new personality of his and he can't quite figure out what's happening to him. But he must find out who is really is before he and his girlfriend both wind up dead.

Now once again I should've known that this movie was going to be awful when I saw that the writer (Max Landis) also wrote 2012's found footage hit Chronicle. This marks the second time this month that someone associated with that movie crapped the bed when they were given the opportunity to take on a more challenging task (Fantastic Four). Literally 99% of the jokes in this film bombed and their lame attempt at making this a combination of The Bourne Identity and Grosse Pointe Blank misfired at every level.

There was one kind of cool action scene where Matt is taking on an entire army with only the kitchen utensils he finds in a convenient store but it pales in comparison to what Denzel did in The Equalizer. The other scenes were just tired rip offs from better action movies like The Terminator or The Raid. And every time they tried to give this movie some heart, it just simply led to unintentional (and not in a good way) comedy. For some reason we are forced to hear about stopping trees and moving cars for what seems like a half hour.

There were a number of times I seriously thought about getting up and walking out of this trash but I figured if I could sit through all of The Gambler with Marky Mark, then I could sit through anything. Well it looks as though Hollywood has a found a new low and that low is American Ultra. This movie gets a rating of WACK!