American Ultra wasn’t quite the hot dumpster fire I’d feared it was going to be, but it wasn’t as enjoyable as I wanted it to be either. There was a definite sense of disjointedness to the story.

I wish they hadn’t discarded that original storyline of a woman loving a flawed man. That was some powerful stuff there. And those tiny morsels of it strewn through the Frankenstein monster of the rest of the movie made me sad.

As I was watching, I kept thinking “With some editing this could be a watchable movie.”

As it was, American Ultra was a dud.

KStew was charming as always. She did the best she could with some truly terrible dialogue.

Jesse Eisenberg left me cold. He’s always so glib. It takes away from whatever scene he’s in.

I can’t think of her name, but she’s a lovely lady in every TV show she’s in… Oh lordy. Someone needs to fire the makeup person, because that was definitely not some HD-ready foundation. And someone needs to yell at the editors for not smoothing the scenes up in post.

And then there’s Topher Grace.

Topher Grace.

Topher Grace.

Seriously, he’s got the role of sleazy badguy down pat. But he definitely should have pointed out how awful most of his lines were, and how they totally destroyed any credibility this movie might have had.

American Ultra is not a flaming dumpster fire. There are a few scenes that will hopefully be cut out and reused someday in a much better movie. But most of it does belong in a dumpster.