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Uncle Drew (2018) (66%)
Director: Charles Stone III
Writer: Jay Longino
Stars: Kyrie Irving, Lil Rel Howery, Shaquille O'Neal
Production Company: Creators League Studio
I really, really didn't expect to like Uncle Drew at all, but I came out pleasantly surprised. The story is simple enough: a young man pays to enter his team into a big street basketball tournament, but his whole roster leaves his team for another so he is left trying to find replacements. Enter Uncle Drew (an old man who we see show up a younger player on a public court), who the young man convinces to play for him, leading to Uncle Drew rounding up all of his old friends to play as well. This film is pretty dang funny. The jokes that land aren't just deserving of a snort, they're deserving of an audible laugh. Further, while several of the main characters in this film are not played by professional actors, I thought the acting was solid for the most part. Sure, there are a few scenes where you can tell they aren't exactly the most polished out there, but they did well working out of their normal element of playing professional basketball. However, this film stumbles whenever it tries to add in some drama with the comedy. It just doesn't work. It comes off as forced and really brought down the film more than it should have. There are also plenty of comedic cliches at work in Uncle Drew, but I can't say I didn't expect that. It's not like they were going for a groundbreaking comedy here. Overall, Uncle Drew is one of the funnier comedies I've watched this year. It scores pretty high as far as comedy goes, but it slipped up in other areas that keep it from being one of my overall favorite comedies of the year.
Director: Charles Stone III
Writer: Jay Longino
Stars: Kyrie Irving, Lil Rel Howery, Shaquille O'Neal
Production Company: Creators League Studio
I really, really didn't expect to like Uncle Drew at all, but I came out pleasantly surprised. The story is simple enough: a young man pays to enter his team into a big street basketball tournament, but his whole roster leaves his team for another so he is left trying to find replacements. Enter Uncle Drew (an old man who we see show up a younger player on a public court), who the young man convinces to play for him, leading to Uncle Drew rounding up all of his old friends to play as well. This film is pretty dang funny. The jokes that land aren't just deserving of a snort, they're deserving of an audible laugh. Further, while several of the main characters in this film are not played by professional actors, I thought the acting was solid for the most part. Sure, there are a few scenes where you can tell they aren't exactly the most polished out there, but they did well working out of their normal element of playing professional basketball. However, this film stumbles whenever it tries to add in some drama with the comedy. It just doesn't work. It comes off as forced and really brought down the film more than it should have. There are also plenty of comedic cliches at work in Uncle Drew, but I can't say I didn't expect that. It's not like they were going for a groundbreaking comedy here. Overall, Uncle Drew is one of the funnier comedies I've watched this year. It scores pretty high as far as comedy goes, but it slipped up in other areas that keep it from being one of my overall favorite comedies of the year.