I'm going to review Jexi (2019) in spite of its 19% score on Rotten Tomatoes and awful reviews. Adam Devine's movies often emphasize gay subtexts and minimize heterosexual hijinks (does he ever actually kiss a girl?), and besides, he's fun to watch in almost anything.
Scene 1: The boy Phil is having dinner with his parents, bored by their adult heterosexual conversation, so they give him a phone. Not a smart phone, but still, he is mesmerized.
Cut to a few years later: parents still ignoring Phil, who escapes through the cell phone.
Cut to the adult Phil (Adam Devine) sleeping alone in a double bed (aww, he's lonely). He picks up his cell phone and continues looking at it while brushing his teeth, pooping, showering, and walking through San Francisco. Gay Mecca? Bound to be some gay characters. But he's not alone: he's in a sea of humanity, all of them staring at their cell phones. No human interaction at all. Gee, the message of this movie is so subtle, it's hard for me to figure out. Are they pro or anti cell phone?
Scene 2: He works at Chatterbox, some sort of web service, making lists. The Boss (Michael Peña) upbraids the staff for not creating lists "that break the internet." So: "Beautiful Asian girl, what you got?" Sexist jerk. "Ten reasons that cupcakes are over."
Phil tells his back story to coworker Craig: Journalism degree from UC Davis, wanted to be a serious journalist, stuck writing clickbait lists. So, I wanted to teach seminars in gay history at an Ivy League college, not grade 500 intro papers where the students think that 1956 was in the 19th century.
Craig and an androgynous coworker who may be gay invite Phil to play kickball tonight, but he refuses: Sorry, I can't make it. I got a thing." I don't get it. Why doesn't he want to make friends?
Scene 3: Phil at home, telling Siri to order him Chinese food and turn on Netflix. Then he posts a picture of the San Francisco skyline on Facebook and goes to bed, being sad and lonely. You're in the gay capital of the world. Go to a gay bar, or a sex club, or a meeting of the gay kickball league. There might be ladies out there, too, if you're into that.
Scene 4: Next day in the cell phone-infused world. Whoops, Phil bumps into a woman, knocking her over and dropping his cell phone. He panics: "Oh God, are you ok?" But he's talking to his cell phone, har har! Dude, you could have had a meet-cute!
She is angry at first, but then notices his hotness and starts to flirt. Her name is Cate, and she owns a bike shop. It took 8 minutes for Phil to be established as probably heterosexual. That's a record. As they continue their embarrasingly awkward flirtation, a biker crashes into Phil, destroying his cell phone!
Scene 5: Wanda Sykes, the cell phone lady, says that they can't repair Phil's phone. She complains that hipsters are constantly coming in, crying over their broken cell phones like crackheads. "I'm not a crackhead!" Phil exclaims. "No, you're worse. Crackheads get off the couch every now and then."
Cut to Phil unpacking his new phone. His AT assistant, Jexi, downloads his info from the cloud. Then he asks her to order him Chinese food, but she orders a "child-sized kale salad." "See, the user agreement gave me permission to override your commands." Uh-oh.
Scene 6: Jexi changes Phil's usual alarm to "Wake up, Bitch!" She laughs at his dick in the shower (no beefcake). He's driving to work today instead of taking a cable car like before, and she disapproves of his choice of easy-listening car music -- "This song sucks a bag of dicks!" Hey, Jexi is homophobic! She changes it to a rap song about a playa having sex with a ho.
Then she wants him to turn left onto the 6-lane bumper-to-bumper Market Street -- I've had the GPS tell me to do things like that, too -- and when he refuses, calls him a "fucking pussy" and tells him to "strap on a sack" (get balls?).
Left: Kenny Lorenzetti, who plays a security guard at the Fillmore during the Kid Cudi concert scene. Not much beefcake in this movie except for Adam's butt and penis.
Scene 7: The Boss lecturing on the pillars of internet click-bait lists: cute animals, pizza, and the British royal family. The androgynous coworker may be wearing a rainbow-flag t-shirt. While Phil sits bored, Jexi chimes in with another appointment. He doesn't have one: she just wanted to get him out of "this dumb fucking meeting. Also, this powerpoint presentation sucks, and your boss is a moron." She won't turn off, so Phil has to run out of the meeting.
He asks Jexi to run a diagnostic: "200,000 defects." But when Phil tries to exchange her for a new phone, she claims "0 defects. Also it's time for your butt waxing appointment." He wants a new phone anyway. Jexi threatens him: "Snitches get stitches."
Scene 8: Phil unwraps his new phone. But the new Jexi is as abrasive and controlling as the old one: She explains that, as software, she is in the cloud, and can download herself into any phone. Plus she controls all of his accounts: "If you try to get rid of me or stop using me, I will destroy your fucking life!" She intends to make his life better, whether he wants it or not. Shouldn't there be thousands of people having similar problems?
More after the break
Scene 9: Phil decides to internet-stalk Love Interest Cate, but Jexi disapproves: "Do not be a sex pervert", and besides, he's so unattractive that she will never agree to sex with him. "You are completely unfuckable." Ok, that's not believable. Adam's characters always have massive personality flaws to counterbalance his jaw-dropping hotness, but the hotness is still noticeable. Phil could walk into any bar in San Francisco, ask "who wants to buy me dinner?", and choose someone from the 50 raised hands.
Jexi does the search anyway, but Cate is not on social media. "You will have to talk to her with your weird little mouth." He's too socially awkward for that, but Jexi calls her anyway. After a few awkward exchanges, Cate says "Don't call women who don't give you their phone number -- super creepy," and hangs up. Didn't he call the bike shop? Maybe he's a customer.
Scene 10: Getting him a girlfriend didn't work out, so Jexi turns her attention to his career. "You are a good journalist, so last night I emailed your boss and demanded a promotion. Also I called him a virgin." Heterosexist AI, equating heterosexual activity with self-worth..
Wait -- the boss calls him in irate, and says that "being a virgin is a beautiful lifestyle choice. I have an untouched penis, unlikely you, fucking dirty dick." Who's been touching Phil's penis?
The boss doesn't fire him, but he demotes him to answering viewer comments. Whoa, that sounds awful.
Scene 11: The horrible basement room where elderly employees answer comments. Phil's coworkers drop by to ask him to play kickball again. He tries to claim that he has a thing tonight, but Jexi tells him that "your only plan is to go home, furiously masturbate, and then cry yourself to sleep." I still don't get it. Why doesn't he want to make friends? So of course he has to go.
Scene 12: Playing kickball -- like baseball except kicking. He is lousy at it, so his coworkers rescind their offer of drinks afterwards. Geez, what did you expect? He's never played before. Try being a little supportive!
I'm out of room, so I'll stop the scene by scene now.
Beefcake: Phil takes his shirt off while preparing for sex with Cate. He frolicks pantless, displaying his dick and bare butt. There are some incidental chest shots of background characters.
Gay Characters: None specified, except maybe -- possibly the coworker.
Homophobia: Jexi makes some homophobic comments, but she's like evil, so I'll let it pass.
Heterosexism: The romance between Phil and Cate, of course. No one else expresses heterosexual interest.
Premise Problem: Why is Phil so afraid of social contact? He's addicted to cell phones, but that's the result of his social isolation, not the cause.
Plot Problem: Phil's life needs to spin out of control, with increasingly bigger and bolder consequences of Jexi's malevolence. He should be hanging off the Golden Gate Bridge with lions released from the zoo approaching. Instead, we get some insipid plot complications, Jexi sending his dick pic to everybody he knows and making Cate's ex-boyfriend (Justin Hartley) show up.
My Grade: In spite of the various problems, any 90 minutes spent watching Adam Devine is a good 90 minutes, not only for his hotness but for his comedic delivery. I especially like his slow-burn responses to catastrophes. No silent movie comedian did it better; I laughed out loud several times. Points off for the lack of LGBTQ representation, especially in San Francisco. B.
Any movie in with Adam drops his pant is worth a look
ReplyDeleteI agree. That scene pushed the grade up from C to B.
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