
Everyone is a loser.
Jackpot! (2024): 1 out of 10: Jackpot! is an action comedy film directed by Paul Feig, set in a near-future California where the state has introduced the “Grand Lottery” to address financial woes. The lottery has a deadly twist: the winner must survive until sundown, as losing ticket holders are legally permitted to kill the winner to claim the multi-billion dollar prize, with the stipulation that no guns are allowed.
The story follows Awkwafina as a former child actor who moves to Los Angeles, aiming to revive her career. Unaware of the lottery’s lethal stipulations, she inadvertently becomes the jackpot winner of $3.6 billion. Immediately, she becomes the target of random extras eager to claim her prize. Many of which are members of a tour bus group which, I am guessing, financed the film from all the times it is in frame.

A dapper suit wearing John Cena, a freelance lottery protection agent, offers his services to help her survive the day in exchange for a percentage of her winnings.
I do not hate Awkwafina. She was fine in Renfield and she was a lot less irritating than she could have been in Crazy Rich Asians. In addition, Ocean’s 8 was not completely her fault.

I do not hate John Cena. Sure, I prefer Dwayne Johnson, Dave Bautista and Roddy Piper as wrestlers turned thespians go. Nevertheless, he was okay in Bumblebee and F9: The Fast Saga was not completely his fault.
Paul Fieg is on thin ice, however. I loved Spy. “Jackpot!” on the other hand has a high concept Paul Fieg “comedy” written all over it.

The Good
The Good: Simu Liu is in this. He is the best thing in the movie by a country mile. Simu Liu is often the best thing in a movie he appears in. Admittedly, with Jackpot! that bar is not nearly as high as with most of his films.

The Bad
The Bad: Being an action comedy starring John Cena, one might hope for at least some decent action scenes or fight choreography. Hah. The A-Team would have been embarrassed to put these action scenes in its show. T.J. Hooker would have rejected them. The fight scenes are too tame for a Hart to Hart episode. What I am saying is this is subpar late seventies TV action.

The Ugly
The Ugly: There is not one laugh in the entire film. Nothing even close. It is ugly and stupid almost from the first frame. One wonders how this could get any worse and then for some reason Machine Gun Kelly shows up for a cameo like he was Bill Murray in Zombieland, and one has an answer to that question.

In Conclusion
In Conclusion: If you watch a bad drama or a bad horror film, it is still possible to get entertainment out of them. The Circle, for example, is a bad drama. But it is unintentionally hilarious. 2005’s Chupacabra Terror is about as incompetent a horror film you will ever see, but the overweight forty something “Navy Seals” wearing bicycle helmets will never not be hilarious.
A bad comedy, however, just sits there hurting your brain. I felt my IQ dropping from every frame of Jackpot!. It is the antimatter of entertainment. There is a central mystery to Jackpot! that remains unanswered. How is it possible to make such a terrible movie in almost every way?

