BEFORE: All right, another weekend almost here, and I only have to spend HALF of this one at the theater, got some free time at home on Saturday, I can catch up on some TV and maybe play a little bit of "Red Dead Redemption", it's been a few weeks. I've just been so damn busy, with two jobs, the earthquake, the eclipse, the election coming up, it's a lot to handle.
John Boyega carries over again from "Attack the Block".
THE PLOT: A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy in this mystery caper.
AFTER: This is another weird one, the only thing I can equate this with is two prior sci-fi like films about the Black experience, and those are "Sorry to Bother You" and "Us". Maybe a little bit of "Get Out" and "Nope", but mostly those first two. Does anyone even remember "Sorry to Bother You"? It was a BIG DEAL in 2018 for a couple of months, everybody was talking about it, what did it all mean, what was Mr. Blank's real name? And then I guess people saw the movie and got so weirded out by it that they didn't know how to process what the movie had to say about society, and then two months later everyone was back to NOT talking about that movie. And now it's not streaming anywhere (you can rent it on AmazonPrime, I guess) and it's not on cable and it just kind of died. Maybe it will become a cult classic if they can get it on Black Starz or something. But it was a box office hit, it made $18 million and only cost $3 million to make, how is that any kind of failure?
And nobody talks about "Us" any more, that's another movie that felt like it maybe it was some kind of metaphor for the African-American experience, but I think nobody really understood it or knew what to do with it, so people just kind of forgot about it? That was an even bigger hit at the box office, it cost $20 million to make and grossed over $256 million, any way you slice it, that should be a success, except the story didn't stick with people, because nobody's talking about that movie any more. Sure, we had a pandemic since then, everyone was busy trying to survive and not lose their minds in lockdown, but one way to keep busy while theaters were closed would have been to stay inside and watch more movies, like "Sorry to Bother You" and "Us". Something just isn't making sense here.
Unfortunately, I see "They Cloned Tyrone" heading down the same sort of path, except this one was never in theaters, it went straight to Netflix last July - and I"m guessing it was on top of the Netflix charts for two or three weeks, and then everyone just kind of stopped watching it - of course we don't know because Netflix doesn't release viewing numbers unless its movies do SUPER well and they want to brag about it. So their silence is deafening, I guess "They Cloned Tyrone" didn't do so well, and then disappeared off of most people's radar. Not me, once it's on my list I WILL GET TO IT, you've just got to give me a couple months or maybe even a year and a half.
It feels like this movie is maybe coming from the same sort of paranoia that fueled those other two movies I mentioned - that constant feeling that something not quite right is going on, that the white people are trying to control the black people, or maybe they ALREADY DO. How many conspiracies have we heard over the years, they're putting something in the Kool-Aid, they're not putting groceries with fresh vegetables in black neighborhoods, they're only opening up fried chicken restaurants there so black people will have more heart disease and cholesterol problems. OR there's something in the water, AIDS was created in a lab to kill more minorities, and then of course COVID came from a lab, too, and now they're going to use the vaccine to control people or track people, or just flat-out give black people COVID. People are going to believe what they want to believe, and once a conspiracy gets rolling, it's very hard to prove that it's false, because how do you prove a negative? And just because you can't prove it's false, that does NOT mean that it's true, but you know what, it's too late because it's already out there.
The problems start when Slick Charles, a pimp in The Glen area, gets visited by his drug dealer, Fontaine, who he owes money to. After Slick gives him part of what he owes, he sees Fontaine get shot by a rival drug dealer who blocks in his car. The next morning, Fontaine shows up again to collect, perfectly fine, with no memory of being shot and killed. But one of Slick Charles' hookers, Yo-Yo, remembers seeing a black SUV drive up and collect his body, and they find the SUV next to a house, in which they find an elevator to an underground cloning lab. Umm, sure.
The three meet the next day at a fried chicken restaurant, and they all begin laughing ecstatically after eating the food, and they realize there's a powder that's been sprinkled over the chicken that makes everyone enjoy it more. (Not necessary, isn't fried chicken good enough to make everyone happy, black or white?). After finding the substance in both grape drinks and hair products used by black residents, it's clear that somebody is trying to control the actions of African-American people, but who, and also why? The surveillance cameras at the chicken restaurant aren't there for the security of the diners, they've got feeds for black churches, strip clubs, the hair salon and more, so basically the whole town's being watched, too.
So, is everyone a clone? Just some people? If just some, who gets to decide and by what parameters? How does creating clones maintain peace and order, this is all a bit unclear, is it just because the clones can be controlled by certain words and sounds? And who, exactly, benefits from this? What is the ultimate goal, somehow it's the destruction of the black identity through assimilation? I'm not seeing how cloning is the path to that, if I'm being quite honest.
Fontaine eventually meets an older version of himself, which suggests of course that HE is the clone and the other Fontaine is the original. Maybe. Then there's evidence, though, right at the end of the film, that suggests this maybe isn't what was going on at all, that there's more to the picture. Well, unless someone's planning a sequel there perhaps should have been a better explanation for everything, right? Sorry, if you're looking for that it's just not here. But no, by all means, keep making these metaphors for the black experience that are so far-fetched and hard to understand that everyone's going to forget about your movie in two months' time. If you really want to make a movie that sticks with people, maybe explain what's going on a little better, just saying.
Also starring Teyonah Parris (last seen in "The Marvels"), Jamie Foxx (last seen in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"), Kiefer Sutherland (last seen in "The Reluctant Fundamentalist"), David Alan Grier (last seen in "Clifford the Big Red Dog"), J. Alphonse Nicholson (last seen in "Just Mercy"), Tamberla Perry, Eric B. Robinson Jr., Trayce Malachi (last seen in "Tag"), Shariff Earp (last seen in "Moonlight"), Leon Lamar (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Joshua Mikel (last seen in "The DIrt"), Ryan Dinning (last seen in "Jungle Cruise"), Swift Rice (last seen in "Dear Evan Hansen"), Megan Sousa, Charity Jordan (last seen in "Respect"), David Shae (ditto), Austin Freeman (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"), Shinar Frazier, Jason Burkey (last seen in "Lady and the Tramp" (2019)), Randy Waters, Al-Teron, Kia Shine, Lou Young, Juel Taylor, Dajanea Cole, Elliott Dixon (last seen in "Let's Be Cops").
RATING: 4 out of 10 scratch-off lottery tickets
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