Adventure

I Love Boosters

This surreal comedy couldn’t be more clothing optional.

I knew “I Love Boosters” would be a colorful comedy with a wacky sense of humor and a lot of color palettes that are eye candy. But I didn’t know how surreal it would get, and I should have considering that this is the second movie Boots Riley has made after “Sorry to Bother You.” This is another entertaining example of how far he’s willing to go to speak on important topics by acting like he comes from a parallel universe. I could say the same thing about Daniels (who took the multiverse genre to new heights in “Everything Everywhere All At Once”), but that’s another story.

We meet a group of shoplifters, known as “boosters,” who steal expensive clothes from the retrial franchise “Metro Designers” and resell them at affordable prices. Keke Palmer (wearing an aqua dress and a blue wig at one point) plays Corvette, Naomi Ackie plays Sade, and Taylour Paige plays Mariah; and they all target the CEO Christie Smith (Demi Moore), whose company gives the employees hazardous working conditions, less pay, and more hours. She hates these boosters and they hate her, too.

Metro Designers changes colors every now and then. As the film begins, it begins in different shades of green. And the manager (Will Poulter) wears a green suit, big glasses, and dyed hair. And then, it changes to yellow. I’m not even sure if this is a monthly thing if a major event has different retailers in different colors. They could be also be in blue or red. I remember a friend of mine giving me a gift that was blue and not aqua. She knew that was my favorite color, but she couldn’t find one in that color. I assured her it was okay, because if my room was completely in aqua, I would get sick of it. But as the Metro Designers announcer says: “You want a different color, deal with it.”

There’s a lot of strange things in “I Love Boosters,” like a giant ball of junk rolling, Christie working in a slanted building, Don Cheadle disguised by make-up as a motivational speaker, Lakeith Stanfield (reuniting with Riley) as a sexy stud giving a blow job that almost reminds us of the main bad alien in “Men in Black,” some stop motion creatures, and here’s something that might answer George and Jane’s question of how Mary Poppins can fit a lamp in her bag. Poppy Liu plays a professional shoplifter, who has a teleporter that fits in her bag. But that’s not all that it can do. It can also upgrade or downgrade not just the merchandise, but people and objects, as well.

For those of you who are expecting “I Love Boosters” to be like “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” get out of your comfort zone, because this is wildly surreal and hilarious stuff blended well together in a margarita by Riley. I look for movies to take these kinds of risks, and I don’t care how movie goers will take it. This movie has a unique color palette, twisted visuals, a challenging story, and brilliant work from the likes of Palmer, Liu, Stanfield, and Moore. Granted, it might be too much to process and there’s a lot that goes down, but it all plays off and is executed with daring originality.

I think Riley might be on a completely different level that crosses Wes Anderson with Jean Pierre Jeuent and Daniels, and he’s willing to do anything to make “I Love Boosters” a Sci-Fi movie of sorts. He can throw a lot at the audience, and his characters look good handling whatever otherworldly thing happens. I’m a film critic who likes to wear different colored clothing as long as they match and feel consistent. So I know when the colors match in this movie.

Rating: 3.5 out of 4.

Categories: Adventure, comedy, Crime, Drama, Sci Fi

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