You know it’s going to be an uphill battle for a movie based on a series of popular Pepsi commercials to be beloved by bearded fat-guy critics and people who regularly call themselves “cineastes” without any irony.
But fate be damned, Lionsgate is going all in with their attempt at making an Uncle Drew movie a summertime smash, because they just know in their heart of hearts that Celtics fans across the great state of Massachusetts will see this movie enough times to make it profitable. That’s just how much our statesmen love Kyrie Irving nowadays, even if the vegan diet might be slowing him down a bit. Anyways, the studio dropped the first trailer for the project on Wednesday, and boy, it looks pretty bad.
Peep it and weep:
So yeah, it seems Uncle Drew’s gotta get the gang back together (of course played by a group of all-star ballers in old age make-up) to help the TSA Agent from Get Out beat Nick Kroll at a basketball tournament. There’s not enough time for us to tell you how entirely uncomfortable we are with this project, given that it’s basically the Mac and Me of feature-length commercials for soda companies, but we will say that we don’t think that this one’s going to be taking down Air Bud any time soon from it’s ninth-place position on the list of all time basketball-based classics.
We do kind of like the Shaq Fu nod, even if it’s a bit odd to see Heihachi Shaq show up ready to throw down, and we’re glad that Tiffany Haddish and Lil Rel Howery are getting nice fat checks out of being in this movie. But yeah, this ain’t great.
We love you, though, Kyrie, and we’re actually pretty sad about this overall. Even Kevin Durant had his Thunderstruck back in the day, and look what that got him: a great deal with the Golden State Warriors, a championship ring, and top heel status with millions of basketball fans. So, uh, maybe don’t do the movie next time?
Uncle Drew hits theaters on June 29. God help you.