{"id":44938,"date":"2024-08-24T18:34:09","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T22:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=44938"},"modified":"2024-08-24T18:34:09","modified_gmt":"2024-08-24T22:34:09","slug":"jackpot-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/24\/jackpot-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Jackpot! (2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Now Available for Streaming on Amazon Prime.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Paul Feig\u2019s \u201cJackpot!\u201d is that horrible, malt-o-meal garbage movie meant mainly to be as edgy as possible without ever really intending to offend anyone. It disguises itself as social satire when really in the end it has zero to say. It\u2019s just a flaccid hundred minutes drag through nonsense and emptiness. No one at any point in this movie seems to be mentally present, including John Cena who often looks a lot more like a walking action figure than anything else. With Feig\u2019s premise you just assume you\u2019d be in the market for a blood soaked science fiction film. At the very least, you\u2019d expect a darkly comic if mean movie about greed and the way the economy has driven in to rabid dogs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually a vanilla coming of age story with a premise that\u2019s gradually pushed in to the background over the course of the narrative.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the year 2030 Los Angeles, the California Grand Lottery, started in response to the Great Depression of 2026, tantalizes cash-strapped citizens with hope via a mega-billions jackpot. The catch? If you win, you have to survive until sundown; anyone who kills you \u2013 and they have your location \u2013 gets your money. Also, no one can use guns. Feig just feeds us these plot points and expect us to swallow them without asking why. Why does no one outside of California know about the lottery and this ritual? Do other states participate in this ritual? Is the lottery program meant to curtail violence or crime?<\/p>\n

When and why did they decide this would be the norm? Why does the lottery winner have to fight for their earnings? Can they bow out? Can they opt not to defend their win? Why do they need to fight to keep their lottery win? Can they refuse to participate in the lottery? If they win and survive, are they eligible for a second run? Are guns and bullets off the table or anything else that shoots projectiles? Can the winners flee the city? Can they use help from outside of their city?<\/p>\n

If companies are allowed to be established to help the lottery winners then why is the lottery program even in place? If the lottery winner hires an agency to help them survive, can the competitors hire agencies to help them track down and murder the winner? I had so many more questions as the movie went on that it hindered any attempt to enjoy what was unfolding. \u201cJackpot\u201d is such a raucously dumb and obnoxious movie that never know what it wants to be. It tries to be pretend to be a social satire, is too scared to dive in to black comedy, and never actually can stick the landing on being a romance comedy .<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Especially since Awkwafina and John Cena have zero romantic and sexual chemistry. The movie just coasts by for two hours on a lot of random violence and physical pratfalls without ever lending us any reason to invest in this world. There\u2019s even an oddly placed running gag with John Cena\u2019s character\u2019s obsession with the Ninja Turtles. It seems to be sprinkled through the movie, sans laughs, only as a means to ending on an insanely unfunny pizza restaurant joke involving copyright infringement.<\/p>\n

\u201cJackpot!\u201d is a continuation in a flurry of space filler movies released this year. I\u2019ve yet to see a movie as bad as this. But then the year is still young.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now Available for Streaming on Amazon Prime. Paul Feig\u2019s \u201cJackpot!\u201d is that horrible, malt-o-meal garbage movie meant mainly to be as edgy as possible without ever really intending to offend anyone. It disguises itself as social satire when really in the end it has zero to say. It\u2019s just a flaccid hundred minutes drag through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,71,219,225,906,1012,1087],"class_list":["post-44938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-comedy","tag-coming-of-age","tag-science-fiction","tag-survival","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44941,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44938\/revisions\/44941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}