Nate At The Movies

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

A couple months ago, I watched Sorry to Bother You in preparation for I Love Boosters, and suffice it to say I was shocked by that movie. I loved it, no doubt, but it totally shifted my perception of what I Love Boosters would be. Going into tonight, I was fully prepared for the absurdist social commentary that Boots Riley excels at, and Morgan so wasn’t. I tried to tell her, “it’s going to be a weird one!”, and I guess that wasn’t enough forewarning. I’m sure that I liked I Love Boosters more than Morgan did, but I think we both came out loving this wholly original acid trip.

As I mentioned, Boots Riley’s best quality as a writer and director has been his social commentary, especially as it relates to the working class. Both Sorry to Bother You and I Love Boosters unpack the exploitation of the working class and the power of that same working class to affect change, even if that second part has felt more fantastical than real in both movies (an unfortunate truth). There was an added emphasis on big corporations’ lust for shaping public opinion and culture in I Love Boosters, and I loved the parallelism of the corporations stealing ideas from smaller, creative individuals like Corvette, only for those individuals to fight the corporation by stealing right back. There’s no way you can pick up everything Riley’s saying in one viewing of his movies, but I do appreciate how you can definitely leave the movie on first viewing with the main ideas, since Riley insists on presenting them in more and more obvious ways as the movie goes on.

I saw a huge improvement in Riley’s direction here, both in his cinematography and in his visual language. The film absolutely popped, and both the production design and the costume design were on point. Name me a director besides Wes Anderson using stop-motion like this—I’ll wait. I have no idea if this May release will have awards legs, but I’d love to see it get a technical nomination or two. Riley clearly had a bigger budget here, and he put it to really good use in the design of this film, but also in the all-star cast that he recruited. I love Keke Palmer—who doesn’t?—and she was the star of this film, but this cast worked so well together, balancing so many big names and personalities effortlessly. Taylour Paige and Naomi Ackie were great sidekicks, Demi Moore and Will Poulter hammed it up as the Devil Wears Prada-style villains, and LaKeith Stanfield did his thing in a role that I wish had been bigger. Do I know why he became a soul-sucking worm thing? No, but the man was just mesmerizing; put him in more of the movie!

There have been so many movies over the last year or two that I know for a fact I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t dived headfirst into movies back in 2022, and I Love Boosters is one of those. I absolutely loved this, I know for a fact that I would’ve passed this up if I wasn’t a movie buff. I’ve also found a new favorite director in Boots Riley—I’ve loved his colorful, random direction and design and unique stories with potent commentary—he’s putting out some of the most necessary, original work in the industry right now. I haven’t even gotten to this film’s score yet, which was like part LazyTown, part 4th grade recorder class, and it was awesome. There was so much to love about this movie, so I just went ahead and loved it all. Sign me up for the next Boots Riley movie on opening night!