Ty Watches "Jackpot"

It was my pick for date night movie last weekend, and since Paul Feig was recently on "CBB", I decided to go with his new movie, "Jackpot!". He made it sound good on the podcast, the cast sounded great and Feig tends to make pretty funny movies. Add on the fact that it was deemed an action comedy, that was all I had to hear. As we sat down post dinner, I was kind of excited for what we were about to see. I was wrong.

I hate to say it, but this was a bad movie. There was nothing that was even remotely redeeming for me as a viewer. The premise is really good too, which makes it an even bigger bummer that I did not like this movie. "Jackpot!" takes place in the near future, 2030, and everyone who lives in LA, if they choose, is eligible to win a big lottery if they're name gets picked. The winner has 24 hours where, if someone can kill them without using a gun, they get the prize. See, the premise is pretty solid. It definitely has legs. And, casting Awkwafina as the main character and winner, should've been a homerun. Putting John Cena in there as her helper and protector had a chance to work. And Simu Liu playing an over the top bad guy was a nice change of pace for him. I thoroughly enjoy these three actors, I like their other projects, they make me laugh and Awkwafina and Simu Liu have really good chemistry. But, it simply didn't work. My wife said it best when she told me, "this movie doesn't know what it wants to be". She was totally right. At moments it was pure action. Then they'd do something they thought was dramatic and somber. But that would be buttoned by a joke, that didn't work ever. This movie did this for the whole 100 minutes. It would jump from genre to genre to genre, I guess thinking that the audience wouldn't notice. But my wife and I noticed, and I'm sure a bunch of other people noticed. Awkwafina is underused. She excels when she can kind of go off in a movie or show. She was way too understated in this role. John Cena plays the same character in every movie it seems now. He's good at playing a big goofball, but it can be tiresome and it didn't mesh well here. When he would get into fights in this movie I would just say to myself, well he is going to kick their ass. There was no arc for him. He stayed the same person the whole time. I knew he was going to be fine in the end. There were zero moments, for me, when I thought he was in true danger. As for Liu, he was almost too over the top. He was cliche in his role. He became a 90's action movie villain far too much. And I couldn't buy him as a bad guy. Liu is too nice a dude in real life for me to ever buy him as a villain. He is Shag Chi and Ken to me. He is a handsome dude that can kick butt. He isn't some kind of monster that they tried to portray him as here.

I couldn't find anything I liked in this movie. This should have worked for me, being a fan of everyone involved, but it didn't. Sometimes people that you're a fan of will make bad stuff. It is a fact. "Jackpot!" is that for me. Feig, Awkwafina, Cena and Liu missed the mark here. I do not recommend this movie. It is not good. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

Follow Ty on instagram.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.