Air (2023)
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Air Movie Review
Air is a 2023 biographical sports drama film directed by Ben Affleck and starring himself opposite Matt Damon and Viola Davis. It’s a very weak, pointless movie.
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“A shoe is just a shoe until someone steps into it“
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Sonny Vaccaro and Nike pursue basketball rookie Michael Jordan, creating a partnership that revolutionizes the world of sports and contemporary culture. Making a movie about Air Jordan was a foolish, highly problematic project from the start. Admittedly, I’d expected much worse going in as the final product isn’t a huge capitalist nightmare, but still the very conceit remains troublesome and simply not fit for the big screen treatment.
Reading the reviews from professional critics, I was appalled. It seems that nowadays it’s enough to make a nostalgic movie for the eighties and that would earn your film a perfect rating. Film criticism, thus, has never been in a more dire state. Yes, the soundtrack is lovely. After all, it has so many iconic, fun 80s tunes that are well incorporated into most scenes of the movie.
However, just because you have a great soundtrack doesn’t mean that you get a pass for not having a good script. It felt like sheer manipulation and it remained that manipulative throughout. The dialogue is actually quite strong and even witty at times, but those smaller moments that were admittedly quite funny weren’t enough to save this movie for me.
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You see, ‘Tetris’ is pretty much the same film from 2023 and that one was much more suspenseful, more likable in its characters and infinitely more entertaining. This business movie has no thrills to speak of and is predictable while holding basically no interest for anybody who isn’t into sneakers or sports.
Viola Davis was terrific in Air and she is the only reason to see this mediocre biopic. She portrays Michael Jordan’s mother and how she fought for her son to get the best deal possible was quite admirable and there is one sequence with her and Damon that was truly phenomenal in writing and dialogue.
A better director than Affleck would have realized that she should have been the focus of this story and not the uninteresting businessmen that got this deal going for Nike. Chris Tucker is somewhat funny while Matt Damon and Ben Affleck got great chemistry together as always, but none of these characters got any meaningful development and most were either unlikable or extremely thin. And making a film centering on Michael Jordan that ignores him and sidelines his mother in favor of business talking heads just felt very wrong. It’s all competently made, edited and shot, but again entirely pointless when you really think about it.
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Air is a pointless movie. The only reason to see it is for the excellent Viola Davis performance. A better director than Ben Affleck would have realized that Michael Jordan’s mother should have been the sole focus of this story and not the far less interesting Nike employees. The movie is competently made throughout and it has a terrific soundtrack, but that soundtrack was also extremely manipulative. Just because you add fun 80s tunes doesn’t mean that your movie is suddenly great as many critics would bafflingly make you believe. It’s a movie that had no business being made. Tetris did it much better as it was much more suspenseful, enjoyable and infinitely more entertaining than this chore.
My Rating – 3
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#1. Which of these actors were in Air?
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