 Stick to the plan. What plan? We black men ain't know what's in it. Let's take a drive. Alright, so now we have Superfly, a remake of a 1972 film of the same name. Is it better? Is it worse? Let's find out. My name is Brennan Keith-Avery and this is just my opinion. Hey, what's going on guys? Thank you so much for tuning in to my Appian Slash Review. For Superfly, I really do appreciate it. Now this film here kind of snuck up on me. I didn't know it was coming out a year ago, six months ago, just up until a little over a month ago, maybe two months ago, and I already said Superfly, and I'm like, Superfly, was that the original film that I heard about? Like came out in the late 70s, early 70s, something like that? And it turned out to be true. Now I've always heard about this film, Superfly, a lot of people have talked about it coming up, but I never have seen it. So just to let you know about this review of Paying of Mine, I cannot relate it to the first film, but I do plan on seeing it, and I am interested in seeing the original film and how I compare to this one, especially after seeing this one. Now this is an action crime thriller. It is not a real movie, I mean not based on a true story or anything like that. The director is Director X. The story that I've really never heard of before, but when I look at the filmography, this gentleman has, he's a music video director, and he has a lot of credits under his name, like Kendrick Lamar, who we got Rihanna, Tia, Iggy Azalea, I mean Drake, Bust Rom, Sierra, the list goes on. And at a point in time in the film, it did kind of feel like a music video, and I don't mean that as a knock, I mean that as a positive thing, something that just kind of felt familiar to me as me going up watching music videos where women are twerking or guys are throwing money in the earth making the rain, and I was touching that point right there in just a moment. So my expectations going into this film, I was kind of conflicted because at one point I was just kind of standing myself, okay, is this one of those movies to where it is shining black people in a bad light with stereotypes that we're ignorant and black on black crime and just how black people or the stereotype that we just care about cash and material things and things like that. I just didn't know, but I'm not going to judge a book by its cover. I know if I would have had a conversation like this with a friend of mine that I wanted to go see, we didn't see it together. We had a conversation about the movie Girl, was it the movie where all the four women went on a vacation last year, black women. It was Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Haddish, and I can't remember the fourth person. Girl's Trip, you know what I'm talking about, Girl's Trip. I had a stronger opinion about that movie because I just didn't really care for black women being portrayed as sex objects. That's how I went into the film. That's not how it turned out. This is kind of how I went into the film. And my friend, you know, they really didn't care for my opinion. And you know, we did exchange some words, nothing heated or anything like that. But I don't know if I would have talked to him about Su-Fly. They were just like, well, no, Brandon, slowly roll, you know, black people. Sorry for hitting the mic. Black people, you know, we're people too. You know, we can play every role as well. You know, they got a scar face, you know, that ain't with black people about drugs and departed and things like that. So I just have to set this up and kind of let you know my mindset of going into this movie. And also, before I saw the film, there was another video on YouTube of a gentleman on a toddler said, everybody boycott Su-Fly. And I'm like, OK, you know, what is this? This is Click Beatty. It's going to gain my interest. Makes me want to click it and see what this dude is talking about. And he had a decent amount of subscribers, but more than me. I think he had around 25,000. Maybe 5,000, but it was above 5,000. And I know it was above me. About 25 minute video, I listened to about half of it. And basically he was like, man, Hollywood, they always trying to paint black people as bad and this and that. And, you know, while that has definitely been true in the past, off the top of my head, I was just kind of saying to myself, OK, well, lately, I think, you know, they've been doing a decent job. I'm not just going to pat them on the back. But, you know, I didn't listen to the whole video. So when I was going into this movie or what, if I had all this weight on my shoulder and all these preconceived notions and expectations and thinking that it was just going to be this, it was just going to be that, you know, and that's just really not how you should go into a film. You know, you should just go in with an open mind. And I tried that. And, you know, when I I think I missed like the first 30 seconds, it was a long story, you know, but when I got in and I saw the actors on the screen, the first person I saw was Priest or whatever. The main character being played by what's his name? Trevor Jackson, a young brother. He's known for grown-ish and blackish and also burning sands, I think. And the dude was only 21 years old. But this dude Travis, that Trevor Jackson is a phenomenal actor. I was very surprised because when I just see him in the trailer, he talking about this and that and crypto and he at the top of his game. You know, that's another thing that the traders was promoting cryptocurrency and, you know, I'm not I'm not in that game right now. So I just can't come to any conclusion on the validity of it or whatever. But I do know that, you know, sometime last year, you know, a lot of people got upset and, you know, but that's just another subject. But I noticed that Trevor Jackson, I was like, man, you know, this guy Priest, he's he's really doing good on screen right now. Like I am convinced, you know, I feel him. I'm not saying that I can necessarily relate to him. There's other characters I can relate to. But, you know, he was believable on screen. Not just a stereotypical, you know, casting that I thought that his role of this movie was going to be just somebody that's just ignorant, dumb, just cares about, you know, the short game instead of the long game. You know, just trying to get this money, just trying to get these holes and blah, blah, blah, blah. His character was exactly the opposite of that. I would have been it immediately just kind of sucked me into the film to where I just wanted to know more and more about this guy and how he did become on the top of the game. You know, I'm saying what made him so different from all the other drug dealers or drug pushers, you know, in the universe of this movie and other films as well. They have to do with, you know, people selling cocaine and things like that. And that's the main plot of the film is that, you know, his name is Priest or Young Blood Priest. I don't remember. That's what it says right here. I don't remember that in the movie. I remember them calling him Priest. But it was just about him at the top of his game selling cocaine. And, you know, he was very humble and, you know, he just decided like, look, man, you know, no one in this game is alive at a late age. They either end up dead or in jail. I want to get out. And, you know, he just wants to score one big, one big score so he can get out forever and, you know, just kind of relax, parlay and enjoy his millions with his women or women or whatever. You know, of course, we've seen films like this before, guys, but it's always about execution. How do you get from A to B is what makes it very interesting. And this story is very interesting, starting with Trevor Jackson, another actor in this movie that, you know, stole the show was Jason Mitchell, who played Eddie, his best friend. They're kind of partners in this movie. Jason Mitchell, he was in King Kong. And of course, you know, he popped on the scene with me with Straight Outta Compton, which came out, I think, 2015. If I got the date, you're wrong. Let me know down in the comment section below, of course, directed by F. Gaye Gray. I love these two gentlemen on screen. You know, that was great. They both can act. We knew Jason Mitchell connect, but now Jason Mitchell and Trevor Jackson, you know, I know it can act too. He will definitely be on my radar. And actually this morning, this is Wednesday evening that I'm filming this review right now. I saw the film Monday night. I was listening to an interview of these two on the Breakfast Club with Charlemagne the God. And my goodness gracious, Angela, I forgot their names, whatever, but my bad. No disrespect Breakfast Club. And, you know, that's when I first found out that Trevor Jackson was 21. And, you know, I mean, I'm actually a fan now, not just because of the movie, but also the interview with the Breakfast Club as well. You guys can go check that out. Another actor in this movie that did a great job was Michael Kenneth Williams. This is, you know, he's known from the wire. His name was Scatter. He is kind of like a priest's mentor or whatever. And the relationship that they had was dope. I really did like that. It felt real. It felt genuine. You know, I can compare their relationship literally to somebody, you know, in my life that I have a relationship with that's very close to me or whatever. And it just really spoke to me. You know, especially there's like a little, I'll go ahead and give you a little flavor of this. There's like a little martial arts that goes on between them too. You know, and I love that. And me personally, if you know me, I'm a martial arts fan. And, you know, it's just, you know, early on in this film, just really, it was just the characters and the relationships in between them and how they're interacting, you know, was great. I mean, that may not blow you away, but me going in thinking that this movie was gonna be kind of sour in a sense, you know, I was very impressed with what I was getting. And it just goes back to, you know, there's other cameos in, you know, in this film as well. I'm not gonna go down the whole cast list or whatever, especially for one that I'm looking at right now. But the film had like a very mature sense to it or whatever. I mean, you had your characters from all different types of groups. You know, you had your black people over here that had some sense. And then you had a group of Vignery black people over here which is gonna call them snow birds like that was common in the movie. You know, they just looked ridiculous. You had your cartel. You had your corrupt cops, you know, white corrupt cops too. So, you know, you had your black characters, your Hispanic characters, your white characters, you know, everybody doing their thing. And what I like about, what I just really like about it is how the film focused on Trevor Jackson, his character, a young blood priest and just his philosophy on everything. The dude was not flashy. He was not trying to be, you know, he was just chill with it. You know what I'm saying? Calm, collected, always scoping the scene, always just trying to make sure that a thread and a sweater did not come out because he knew that just one little mistake in his whole game would just destroy his empire. That's just what I loved about him. He was a product of his environment. I don't like to judge people in this like, you know, somebody selling drugs, they're just a piece of shit. You know, I'm not gonna, if you're selling drugs to kids and things like that, but you don't know what people go through when they grow up and how they were taught and, you know, what they were lacking and things like that. And literally sometime people are just trying to survive. You know what I'm saying? And, you know, if you go on the store and you stealing food, okay, you know, you can say you're a thief, but hey, if you stealing food because you literally don't have a penny to your name and you got babies in the car and if you don't feed them, they're gonna die. Okay, I mean, you just trying to survive, you know what I'm saying? And they didn't dive that deep into his backstory, but they did enough for me to just be like, you know, hey, I kind of understand where you coming from. You know, they were talking about, you know, black men growing up in America and you know, the conditioning that that does to black people, especially from a young age that is profound and multifaceted. I mean, these are just kind of the things that were just going on through my head. Not saying that this is like the best move in the world. Like, oh my God, it just took my birth away. No, I'm not saying that, but I mean, these are just the emotions that I felt. You know, hey, all films are subjective, but I really did like his character and just how humble he was. And he just did not care about material things that, you know, he wasn't the stereotypical black man, the stereotypical drug pusher, the stereotypical rapper or whatever. They had that in this movie, but the film did made a strong point to make sure that he was not, you know, those labels were not put on him, but they still had that in the rest of the film. And I kind of liked it because it reminds me of another film that Spike Lee did last, no, not last year, I think two years ago, Shiraq or whatever, talked about all the violence in Chicago. Which is funny, but it's interesting to me in the news how they always just talk about Chicago, but they don't want to talk about all the other groups and those cities and how the crime is and how it's kind of similar, you know, but anyway, we can talk about that in another video. But anyway, in Shiraq, you know, it was talking about all the ignorance and the killing in Chicago. And they really did in that film make a point to show you how stupid some people look in this film in the real world that try to live this hard, you know, too hard for yourself in the streets lifestyle. You know, if you're in the streets and you're doing your thing, I'm not judging you, but some people, not all, just take it too far. And they just, you know, wanna go around busting their heads or whatever because, you know, they mad because they can't get a girl or something like that. And you had those characters in this movie and Shiraq and in Superfly. And in that movie, especially with Wesley Snipes character and Shiraq do had a patch on it. It was just bringing to me how Spike Lee made him look stupid. And that film like, hey, all you ignoramuses out there that are in the streets, you know, I'm not talking about everybody in the streets. I'm just talking about people that just do senseless shit. This is how dumb y'all look, okay? So you can either stop it or look, keep looking stupid. And the film was able to do that as well. I mean, just kind of some beef starter out of nowhere with priests. And another thing about a lot of priests is, you know, he not just, if somebody just say something crazy to him, he not just gonna pop off and clap back or whatever and ba, ba, ba, and just, you know, he was like, no, you ain't even worth it. I'm gonna walk away. You know, I liked that about his character, but you still had these knuckleheads, you know, in this film. So, you know, that's that. As far as the story is concerned, like I gave you a brief synopsis trying to get out the game. And I liked, I liked the majority of it. I liked the way it was going with it. I liked how the plot thickened. I liked how the sense of the cartel and, you know, and Michael Kenneth Williams character scatter. I liked all of that. And just kind of, you know, you just kind of dive into the underground life of Atlanta and just kind of seeing how they move things around. And you know, they had a nice little montage in there showing, you know, the transition of time and how far their empire is and spreading out. You know, I was just really, I was really feeling all that. And let me see it here before. Oh, okay. So let me go ahead and get to the end of this right here. This review, the film was great up until the third act. Now, when the third act came, the tone just completely switched to me. It went from a serious, a semi-serious film that I respect with saying to myself, I'm definitely going to be buying this on Blu-ray. And then the film and the third act did turn into that stereotype of a film that I was worried about. I'm just saying like, okay, you didn't have to have a shootout. You didn't have to have a car chase. And I mean, if you're going to do it, that's fine. But it all comes down to execution. It didn't ruin the film for me, but I did kind of just say like, you know, man, you know, and it's not like, I don't mind, you know, having shootouts and movies and stuff like that. I mean, Bad Boys II is one of the dopest movies, shootouts to me just like ever. You know what I'm saying? That's one of the reasons why Michael Bay was my favorite director. And if, check out my Dumbbell trailer reaction, because I talked about that. I thought I was talking about the same little thing here, but I'm combining opinions and videos or whatever. But I don't mind that, because I don't want to spoil it, but just the third act really just turned into like a cartoon to me, just something that, you know, like a slapstick, stupid, you know, moving. And I don't know why that was necessary. I really feel like that was studio involvement just because director X, he was just the tone and flow of the film was just so nice to me from beginning until, and then they just kind of completely like, all right, we gotta have a BS in there. You know, I'm just like, you know, okay. And then again, like when, you know, you have your protagonist, which is Eddie, you have your protagonist, which is a priest or whatever. And then you have your antagonist or whatever. You know, how's it gonna, you know, how's the film gonna end? You know, how are they gonna, you know, tie this up and get us to our conclusion. And it was just so simple and just, it's stupid. I mean, you had one person versus other person and there was just really no thoughts what at all. It was just like the plan came down to like, okay, I'm gonna have this person meet me here and I'm gonna beat his ass, you know, something like that. And when that time came, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but I'm just kind of standing myself like, is this the best y'all can do? I mean, there was no thought of this at all. Like, you know what I mean? That's just like, I was really kind of just let down there, you know, because let me go ahead and get to my rating time. I was gonna rate this an 8.5 out of 10, but now if I were to rate Superfly, the remake from the 1972 film, if I were to rate Superfly out of a one out of 10, I'm gonna still give it a, I'm gonna give it a seven. I'm gonna give it a seven out of 10. I was gonna give it a 7.5, but I'm gonna give it a 7 out of 10 because that ending just really, it really just run me the wrong way. I mean, it was enjoyable, but it was just like, come on, y'all, you just gave up. But you know, hey, it is what it is. But guys, that is just my opinion for the Superfly remake. Have you seen Superfly yet or do you wanna see it? Have I turned you on? Have I turned you off? Do you agree with me or do you disagree with me? Let me know down in the comment section below. Let's get this conversation going and keep it flowing. If you liked this video, go ahead and give me the thumbs up. If you don't, that's fine, but you can still subscribe to my channel. You can also look me up on social media, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, all the good stuff. It's right at the bottom of the screen. I made it very easy by providing a link to all the good stuff down in the description box below. But guys, I just wanna thank you again for tuning in to my opinion slash review of Superfly. And before you go, don't forget that my name is Brandon Keith-David and that's just my opinion. Peace.