Uncle Drew Dribbles Pepsi’s Ball

By Katherine Monk

Thank the Mad-Ave scientists for this Franken-tisement called Uncle Drew. Or blame them. The ball, and there are so many of them in this one, is in your proverbial court.

A movie based on a Pepsi Co. character played by NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving, Uncle Drew began as a concept in corporate office. The soft-drink giant hired the number-one draft pick for a digital short. Impressed by his natural ability on camera as well as on the paint, Pepsi and their ad agency David Brown Entertainment came up with the idea of an old baller heckling the “youngbloods” at Rucker Park, then slam-dunking them into a bucket of shame in a game of street ball. Shot faux-documentary style, the digital campaign went viral and racked up over 100 million YouTube views.

So if you’re wondering why this movie got made, you have your answer. The movie would appear to have a built-in audience. Yet, in just about every other case where a popular character has tried to make the leap from ad junket to feature ocean liner, everyone got wet.

Broadcaster Terry O’Reilly featured a few of them in a recent episode of Under the Influence: The success of Coke’s Mean Joe Green ad spawned a TV-movie, Geico’s Cavemen evolved into a doomed sit-com, and Nike’s Hare Jordan promotions gave birth to Space Jam.

More recently, Labatt brewing and Alliance Films tried to spin the Kokanee commercials into the nasty avalanche called The Movie Out Here, but so far, the only success story has been the Bugs Bunny-Michael Jordan fusion of live action and cartoon.

Space Jam’s advantage was the product — not just the polished, big-budget finished one people saw in theatres, but the identifiable brand associated with the campaign. In the case of Space Jam, it wasn’t Nike sneakers per se, but Michael Jordan, the man, in addition to his signature kicks.

Selling personality can be an honest endeavour, and there’s no doubt Kyrie Irving has plenty. He’s got enough charisma to penetrate several layers of prosthetics and deliver a professional-grade performance in the title role.

Selling personality can be an honest endeavour, and there’s no doubt Kyrie Irving has plenty. He’s got enough charisma to penetrate several layers of prosthetics and deliver a professional-grade performance in the title role.

Yet, as much as Uncle Drew draws from the likes of Jordan, he’s not going to draw viewers for the same reasons. Jordan is the real deal who retired as a hall-of-famer, then made Space Jam. Uncle Drew is a gag featuring Kyrie Irving.

There’s a difference in the value that’s being leveraged, and in turn, our feelings about the inherent contract between the viewer and the filmmaker. No one ever feels good about paying real money to see a glorified commercial — or at least what feels like a blatant pitch. So we can give director Charles Stone III some credit for keeping the Pepsi branding outside the key, even if the rest of Uncle Drew feels like cut-and-paste comedy.

A basketball version of Space Cowboys meets Dodgeball in Harlem, Uncle Drew pivots on the Rucker Park street ball tournament (sponsored by you-know-who). Dax (Lil Rel Howery of Get Out) coaches a promising team with a hot young prospect, but when his childhood rival steals his best player and the whole team, he’s forced to look elsewhere. He scouts every street player in town, but only an ornery old man caves to his begging, bringing Dax and Uncle Drew together in a 1970s shaggin’ wagon.

There’s a difference in the value that’s being leveraged, and in turn, our feelings about the inherent contract between the viewer and the filmmaker. No one ever feels good about paying real money to see a glorified commercial — or at least what feels like a blatant pitch. So we can give director Charles Stone III some credit for keeping the Pepsi branding outside the key, even if the rest of Uncle Drew feels like cut-and-paste comedy.

They hit the road to recruit Drew’s old teammates in the spirit of friendship and a love for the game. In the meantime, they play a high school girls’ team at a gas station and try to outrun a preacher’s wife.

Because the whole thing feels painfully contrived from a plot perspective, it’s hard to overlook the odd shot of a moustache peeling off an upper lip, or the subtle insertion of a red, blue and white sports bag at a crucial moment.

Sure, it’s fun to watch a bunch of pro ballers dress up as old men and own the house. At certain points, it brought back all my fondest memories of the Harlem Globetrotters and their Saturday morning cartoon. At others, it made me think of every minute I wasted time watching the moronic ads for sugary things in between.

Uncle Drew might have been a successful viral video campaign and a mythic meme, but as a feature film, it’s just another misguided attempt by Madison Avenue to pimp out its own intellectual property. The package might look good, but somewhere deep inside, it just feels wrong.

@katherinemonk

THE EX-PRESS, June 29, 2018

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