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Air – No, this isn’t about planes, but the Air Jordan sports trainer, named after basketball sensation Michael Jordan.
Matt Damon (Elysium) takes the lead as Sonny Vaccaro, a gambler in his personal life, but he’s also a talent scout by day, and since Nike needs a hit, he’s looking for not just the next big thing, but a HUGE talent, soon realising it’ll be Mr Jordan, but can they afford him? He won’t come cheap…
This is another Matt Damon/Ben Affleck collaboration, this time with the latter in a smaller role as Nike CEO Phil Knight, who’s going to have to pony up the dough if it comes to that. Meanwhile, Jordan’s parents are brought into the story, his mother being a particular influence on his career, and played by Viola Davis (Black Adam), and you get the feeling that she won’t want to “no” for an answer, if push comes to a shove.
Other notable people in this including Jordan’s agent, David Falk (Chris Messina – I Care A Lot), who spends most of his time shouting back at Sonny over the phone; shoe designer Peter Moore (Matthew Maher – Hello Tomorrow!), who’s tasked with coming up with the right design – and they’re legally required under NBA rules to only put a certain amount of the colour red into a shoe, lest they pay a hefty fine, so that’s going to put a dampner on their plans; and Jason Bateman (Ozark) as Rob Strasser, Nike’s Marketing Vice President, and this leads to a lot of humour between him, Sonny and Phil, so even if you have zero clue about basketball in general, this makes Air very accessible.
In fact, the film’s script and performances makes you care about the characters, as well as basketball, even though there’s not a huge amount of the actual sport on camera, and most of that brief time is just Sonny watching Jordan’s performances on old VHS tapes.
As for who plays Michael Jordan, he’s a young chap called Damian Young (Wonderstruck), but he’s not in the film a huge amount, and generally is obscured or hangs out in the background, since the point of the film is getting across the fact that Jordan is a driving force, and how other shoe manufacturers like Adidas want to sign him.
Plus, Air shows how everything seems to be conspiring against the team, as they try to produce this shoe, but will they succeed? Well, if you want to avoid spoilers, don’t look up the shoe on Wikipedia before watching this. Additionally, this is the first Amazon-financed movie being released in cinemas. They do make some great films, like the aforementioned, I Care A Lot, but there are some stinkers, like I Want You Back.
And even after seeing Champions in Screen 6, and them since claiming everything was now fine… it wasn’t.
Around four weeks later on Easter Monday, I saw this, and as soon as I took my seat, and the adverts began, it was clear the audio is still broken. There’s nothing coming out of the front left speaker, and rather than a sound channel missing, it feels like both channels are pounding out of the right-hand side.
I waited until the trailers began, in case that might trigger a change, but no, it was the same. On this occasion, I went out and mentioned it to one of the staff (a young lady checking tickets), and a few minutes later, another member of staff (a young man) came in with a lady who I presume was the manageress, and they stayed 5-10 mins, taking in the end of the trailers and into the first few minutes of the film. He stayed on the left, while she took a seat on the right.
After that they left, and while I presume they compared experiences afterwards, I don’t know what the outcome was, but I later messaged Cineworld again (and am still waiting for a response) about how if they’re still not convinced, then I’d recommend they are best sitting in a middle seat as I did, so you can hear the balance of the music is totally to the right-hand side.
I saw the same lady as I came out of Air, but due to tight timings, I was going straight into Superman (45th Anniversary) afterwards, so I didn’t get to ask, and I stated that I would happily sit down with anyone for just a few minutes to point this out if need be. After all, I’ve already wasted two tickets’ worth of money, which no-one replying to emails seems to care about, but I have stated I want to work WITH them on this.
As an aside, from an audience point of view, there was an old couple gabbing away behind me from time to time, as if they were occasionally replying to things said onscreen, such as Sonny hoping he succeeds in signing Jordan, and the bloke went, “I hope you do”. Shut up, man! This isn’t a conversation!
Air is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray Steelbook, Blu-ray, Amazon Prime and DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 112 minutes
Release date: April 5th 2023
Studio: Amazon Studios
Format: 1.85:1
Cinema: Cineworld Didsbury
Rating: 8.5/10
Director: Ben Affleck
Producers: Ben Affleck, Madison Ainley, Jason Michael Berman, Matt Damon, David Ellison, Peter Guber, Jeff Robinov, Jesse Sisgold, Jon Weinbach
Screenplay: Alex Convery
Cast:
Sonny Vaccaro: Matt Damon
Rob Strasser: Jason Bateman
Phil Knight: Ben Affleck
David Falk: Chris Messina
Deloris Jordan: Viola Davis
James Jordan: Julius Tennon
Michael Jordan: Damian Young
Howard White: Chris Tucker
Peter Moore: Matthew Maher
Horst Dassler: Gustaf Skarsgård
Kathe Dassler: Barbara Sukowa
John Fisher: Jay Mohr
John O’Neill: Joel Gretsch
Joe Dean: Michael O’Neill
George Raveling: Marlon Wayans
7-Eleven Clerk: Asanté Deshon
Bill: Billy Smith
Tim: Al Madrigal
Stan: Jackson Damon
Richard: Dan Bucatinsky
Katrina Sainz: Jessica Green
Tiffany: Gabrielle Bourne
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.