Uncle Drew Review

PG-13: Suggestive material, language and brief nuditySummit Entertainment, Temple Hill Entertainment, Pepsi Productions1 hr and 43 MinutesDir: Charles Stone III | Writer: Jay LonginoCast: Kyrie Irving, Lil Rel Howery, Shaquille O'Neal, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller, Nate Robinson, Lisa Leslie, Erica Ash, J. B. Smoove, Mike Epps, Tiffany Haddish, Nick KrollBarely in film history has there been a movie based on a series of commercials or, in this case, digital shorts. “Uncle Drew” was just a one-off series of short produced by Pepsi that Kyrie Irving turned into his baby. Then, I guess Hollywood wanted to take that baby and make it a movie. This is exactly how I envisioned the first ever Pepsi film production would be like.
After draining his life savings to enter a team in the Rucker Classic Streetball tournament in Harlem, Dax (Lil Rel Howery) is dealt a series of unfortunate setbacks, including losing his team to his longtime rival (Nick Kroll). Desperate to win the tournament and the cash prize, Dax stumbles upon the man, the myth, the legend UNCLE DREW (NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving) and convinces him to return to the court one more time. The two men embark on a road trip to round up Drew's old basketball squad (Shaquille O'Neal, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller, Nate Robinson, and Lisa Leslie) and prove that a group of septuagenarians can still win the big one.THE GOODIt has been legend (or a known fact, I suppose) that NBA players can’t act to save their life. Shaq in “Kazaam” and Michael Jordan in “Space Jam” are prime examples of that. In a surprising turn of events, Kyrie Irving has finally broken that curse for his performance carries the movie. It’s not just the unrecognizable face that is a factor to his performance, but his performance itself. Not only is he unrecognizable by his makeup but his delivery is on point, his comedic timing is amazing, his old man voice is convincing as hell. Even when he has to be dramatic, Irving delivers. He’s been playing Uncle Drew for 5 years now so he knows this character like the back of his hands. You often forget that Irving is under all of that makeup until he shows off his basketball skills.
Hell, even Shaq gives a good performance and IT’S SHAQ! The film gets some great mileage out of him and provides a good character arc between him and Drew. Irving has great chemistry with the rest of his cast. Performance-wise, “Uncle Drew” might be the only movie where NBA stars can deliver good performances. This could possibly be the sequel to all of the “Uncle Drew” shorts where you had people such as JB Smoove and Nick Robinson reprising their characters from the shorts.This has been a weird year for films featuring actors given the old prosthetic makeup treatment. I keep harking back to Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle in “On Chesil Beach”, but that is a major example on how to NOT do makeup. “Uncle Drew,” on the other hand, is! Besides the comedy, Kyrie Irving and the majority of the cast’s makeup is the selling point of the movie and it’s amazing. The shorts had just a small budget to make the cast look old, but here they go all out. Because this is a feature film with a bigger budget, you can tell a lot of money went towards the makeup as they give everyone the Johnny Knoxville/“Bad Grandpa” treatment. I took time out to watch the digital miniseries (which is only 20 minutes compiled together) and you can tell the clear difference, or rather, upgrade, the makeup department had done to the cast, especially J.B Smoove.
In the short, all he’s given is a grey mustache which makes him just still look like J.B Smoove but with a mustache. In the movie, on the other hand, he’s given a lot of prosthetic makeup which results in him looking completely unrecognizable. So... just saying, don’t be surprised to see this movie nominated for the “Best Hair and Makeup” category at next year's Oscars. Actually, I hope this does get nominated for that because it is impressive. Besides, if “Suicide Squad” can get an Oscar nomination for that and WIN, then any movie qualifies for it.THE BADSince 2017, we’ve been seeing a lot of recurring faces featured in more films after that one highlight movie that put them on the map. Tiffany Haddish was that shining scene stealer of “Girls Trip” and now we see her everywhere. Fortunately, Tiffany Haddish still manages to get some laughs due to her naturally sassy/no-nonsense personality (which now is starting to run out of steam with the same schtick that she does). Just when I thought I was getting Haddish fatigue, she still managed to make me laugh. Then, Nick Kroll is still playing the same role he’s always played since “Sausage Party”: a douche. Kroll is on a roll now with his career and “Big Mouth” and he still managed to get huge laughs out of me.
And then you have Lil Rel Howery, who was the comic relief in “Get Out” and he is the lead of this movie. Unfortunately, his performance doesn’t carry the movie. If there was anything the film taught me, it’s that Lil Rel can only work in small doses of a movie, but not for a feature length film. The majority of his lines are ad libbed and you can clearly tell. He worked in “Get Out” because he was there in little increments but also played a huge part of the story. He was briefly in “Tag” and had a funny joke in the beginning. Here, he just can’t do it.You can tell director Charles Stone III told him to improv his lines and hardly any of them land. The film suffers from technically typical comedy tropes, from poor ADR work to inconsistent editing. So within every transition, Dax is saying a line as a means to just tell a joke with a one liner and none of his lines are funny. He even makes a reference to “Get Out” just because... WELL, HE WAS THE COMEDIC STAR OF “GET OUT”. I like Lil Rel Howery and think he’s funny, but this movie proves that he only works in small doses. He nearly shouts every line, improvs every line, and his character gets under your skin.They constantly make running jokes regarding his height to an excessive extent that you question, was this role meant for Kevin Hart? Kevin Hart is mostly known for being the punching bag of jokes relating to his height. A lot of the jokes at the expense of Howrey’s character, Dax, refer to how short he is. It doesn’t help that Dax is an unlikable character.
Seriously, Dax is a trifling dude who didn’t make the right decision but talks a big game. He puts all his affordings to a streetball game, which puts his girlfriend in debt. Usually, you would think that a character like this is the gold digger, but Haddish’s character makes her earning. Dax makes his money and keeps it to himself. Once she says how he never contributes to the rent you agree with her to kick his ass out. As a matter of fact, he’s annoying because he thinks he knows everything. The entire story begins because he SPENDS ALL OF HIS LIFE SAVINGS ON A STREETBALL TOURNAMENT!  The only thing about him is that he’s the whipping boy to everyone’s jokes which he deservingly gets.The story itself is a very typical underdog narrative that has the “let’s get the band back together” road trip tropes attached to it. The narrative hits all of the familiar beats it can and comes across as corny at times, especially since most of Uncle Drew’s dialogue is old man wisdom. But, at the end of the day, it has something not “Space Jam” or “Thunderstruck” or most Basketball movies have: heart. To my surprise, “Uncle Drew”  is charmingly endearing and it earns some of smiles that comes onto your face.THE RENDYWhy does every comedy feature a random dance off sequence in the middle of it? The last shit we went through was “Ferdinand” which just stops for a dance sequence that features a twerking bull. Here, there’s a random dance off sequence where the old school goes against the new school. It’s not funny at all, but IT’S EXHAUSTING NOW!LAST STATEMENT“Uncle Drew” is as typical of a PG-13 sports comedy as it can get, but due to the fun performances by the experienced players in prosthetics and more hit than miss humorous moments, it makes for a solid layup of a good time.Rating:  3/5 | 62%Super Scene: Big Man wants TV