Describe This Movie In One Space Jam Quote:
BUGS BUNNY: Remember those mugs and T-shirts and lunchboxes with our pictures on 'em?Brief Plot Synopsis:
DAFFY DUCK: Yeah.
BUGS BUNNY: You ever see any money from all that stuff?
DAFFY DUCK: Ha! Not a cent!
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 Kurt Rambises out of 5.
Tagline: "Courting a legend."
Better Tagline: "Money talks, Adidas walks."
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: In 1984, shoe company Nike dominated the jogging industry, but had only 17 percent of the NBA market. Grody to the max. Good thing Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), the company's basketball guy, comes up with a totally tubular idea: sign incoming rookie Michael Jordan (Damian Young) to an exclusive deal by developing a rad shoe just for him. There are, however, a few obstacles: Jordan's agent, David Falk (Chris Messina); Jordan's mother Deloris (Viola Davis), and none other than Nike CEO Phil Knight (Ben Affleck) himself. Gnarly!
"Critical" Analysis: There was a meme floating around contrasting the way movies set in the 1980s tend to focus on the Day-Glo and shoulder pads. They ignore how so much of the decade's aesthetic — in the early years especially — bled over from the '70s: the beige sameness, the regrettable hair, the freaking velour.
Say what you want about Air, Affleck's latest directing/acting double threat, it gets the era right. Honestly, it's a bit much. The opening credits aren't just a trip down Reagan Era memory lane, they're like passing out in the pile of Members Only jackets on the bed at a party while "Born in the U.S.A." plays on a loop.
Fortunately, Affleck and screenwriter Alex Convery (awfully close to Converse, don't you think?) only use that as an establishing element, letting the story unfold with a quip-heavy script and some key emotional monologues that let all three of the film's Oscar winners (Davis, Damon, and Affleck) show their stuff.
Affleck's Knight is a former maverick who's almost completely allowed corporate stewardship to eviscerate almost every remnant of nonconformity, while Vaccaro finds Damon at his schlubbiest since The Informant! Davis is ... well, Davis. She's the soft-spoken force behind Michael, but also reflects his ambitions.
This is also the most likable Chris Tucker has been in a movie since maybe ever.
Messina almost steals the show as MJ's agent, however. He has at least two scenes reminiscent of R. Lee Ermey's drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. Turns out Falk and Vaccaro are at odds professionally, but still respect each other. To a point.
You also get all the decade-appropriate needle drops you were promised in Wonder Woman 1984, but failed to materialize. And all of them are painfully on the nose: "In A Big Country" as Vaccaro drives through North Carolina, "All I Need is a Miracle" as the team maneuver to get a sit-down with Jordan, or "Be Like Mike," which honest-to-Kareem Abdul Jabbar plays over an end credits highlight reel.
One unintentionally hilarious exchange takes place when Vaccaro's boss Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) discusses his ambivalence concerning "Born in the U.S.A." He belatedly realizes the song is about economic depression, and has a hard time reconciling that with Nike's use of sweatshop labor. It's presented like a learning opportunity, yet Affleck and Convery seem unaware that Nike was linked to forced Uyghur labor in China three years ago.
Vaccaro was certainly right about Jordan's (and Nike's) impact on the NBA, but this isn't a story about MJ's achievements so much as it is a tale of a plucky billion dollar company extending a minuscule percentage of its largesse to the player that would become arguably the greatest of all time. Vaccaro makes his ultimately successful pitch to the Jordans (spoiler warning for the cave dweller who was unaware of the Jordan/Nike connection) with an "impromptu" speech that packs a lot more oomph coming from a guy who shares his office with the department's video library.
Air is in theaters today.
