Critic Reviews

Nima Nourizadeh’s American Ultra is a bloody valentine attached to a bomb. It’s violent, brash, inventive and horrific, and perhaps the most romantic film of the year.

Check your brain at the popcorn-butter pump in the lobby and enjoy it.

American Ultra is one of those geeky genre mishmashes that’s very clever about being dumb.

The screenplay is deceptively tight, even as the main characters seem to be buzzing aimlessly through the proceedings. Like the most successful films of the drug-hazed genre, this movie only appears to be going off the rails.

That American Ultra works as well as it does is a testament to its two lead performances.

A Bourne movie turned just askew enough to be funny, American Ultra trains a bemused eye on a trope ripe for a ribbing.

It's fun in a bad way and bad in a fun way, and that’ll do for this late in the summer.

A lot Bourne and a little bong, the action comedy...is too earnest to be a stoner movie and too quirky to be an action flick. Therein lies the beauty of director Nima Nourizadeh’s Ultra: It exists to entertain in its own oddball universe, munchies optional.

This is not a spoiler alert; it’s a tip: If you go to see American Ultra, stay for the credits, right to the end. They are animated and provide a mini fourth act for the film, a little action movie starring a super simian and a beautiful (human) damsel; they are an amusing addendum, but mainly they tell you a lot about where American Ultra’s heart lies, deep in comic-book territory.

Part stoner comedy, midnight movie, outsiders’ love story and ultraviolent B-movie, this intriguing film is given real soul by stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart, even if director Nima Nourizadeh’s ambitions end up being more laudable than the results.