BlackBerry (2023)

CinemaSerf October 19, 2023

★ 7/10

Matt Johnson's rather John McEnroe-esque "Doug" rather stole this tale of what was literally a tech-tonic shift in how we used our mobile phones. He, together with his boss Mike (Jay Baruchel), has been working with a small team of geeks to develop a mobile word processor that can send messages by text and email. It's funding they lack and it's during a fairly flawed presentation that they encounter "Jim" (Glenn Howerton), a savvy operator who knows just enough about the business to get them that elusive big deal. Thing is, they don't think they have the processing capacity to service this ever increasing share of the market even if their new pal is generating eye-watering business opportunities. A 46% market share of what became the exponentially burgeoning smartphone market offered them real potential to dominate for years - but history tells us just what did happen. This film benefits…

Louisa Moore - Screen Zealots November 3, 2023

“Blackberry” is a film about the failure and spectacular collapse of the world’s first smart phone. Adapting Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s book “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry” for the screen, director Matt Johnson creates an entertaining look at contemporary history with his tale of the rise and fall of a revolutionary gadget that changed the world forever. In this unconventional story of modern business failure at the hands of fraud and greed, the film tells the history of Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), the two men responsible for the creation and marketing of the BlackBerry smart phone. It was one of the first of its kind, featuring a pocket device (with a keyboard) that could be used for calls, texts and e-mail messaging. It was a revolutionary idea that was dis…

kisaligol January 1, 2024

★ 4/10

The script seems to be written mostly from the perspective of Jim Balsillie, a businessman that was co-CEO of Blackberry, while engineers take a backseat. This follows the general tendency in film to glorify businessmen, treating the people who actually conceptualize, design and implement the products (i.e., do the core work that is societally useful) as mere sidekicks. The general timeline is right and many of the major events in the history of Blackberry are there, but none are described in enough detail for viewers to appreciate the engineering successes that led to Blackberry rising to global prominence, nor the business mismanagement that tanked it. The engineering details that made it in are often confused or misleading (e.g., Blackberry did not invent push messaging, and their prototype wasn't pulled from thin air overnight). It gives the impression most of the source materi…

MarciaClarke January 5, 2024

★ 6/10

I kept hearing people say this movie was actually not bad for a movie about BalckBerry, and you know what, they were right! Glenn Howerton plays an incredibly entertaining psycho as always. Jay Baruchel does the befuddled muppet thing with aplomb. And then the doofus sidekick guy who's actually more insightful than others give him credit for also does a good job. It's an easy mindless entertainment watch. Spoiler alert, the company does really well then it doesn't.

badelf February 18, 2024

★ 9/10

In one sense, this is a comedic action film. In another sense, it's a biopic of a lying, cheating, ruthless, tech businessman of a slightly less rank than Bezos, Zuckerberg and the "Don't be Evil" Page/Brin team. Overall, it's brilliantly cast and paced. It moves along at the perfect clip for this kind of action film. I was interested in the technology, but that truly wasn't the story.

Brent Marchant February 22, 2024

★ 6/10

With the release of such innovative communications products as the Apple and Android smartphones, questions began to circulate about the future viability of onetime market leader BlackBerry, a line of devices that subsequently went into rapid decline. Ironically, that real-life business world narrative itself raises comparable questions about the viability of a movie that tells the BlackBerry story. Nevertheless, writer-director Matt Johnson’s third feature outing brings the ill-fated account of the rise and fall of this Canadian-made smartphone company in the global telecommunications marketplace. Seeing how the company was run, however, it probably shouldn’t come as any surprise why it ultimately failed – shady financial management, ego-driven unbridled greed, undisciplined employees and constant managerial scrambling to remain competitive, despite some surprisingly savvy marketi…

rsanek March 27, 2024

★ 8/10

The downfall part is a bit sudden as compared to the first 2/3 of the film, but still a very fun watch.

r96sk May 22, 2024

★ 9/10

Thoroughly fascinating to watch this unfold. 'BlackBerry' reminded me a lot of fellow 2023 flick 'Air', two movies that were in fact released within months of each other interestingly. Both are great watches, with this being one I particularly enjoyed. It's super well put together. The two hours go by fast, the story is presented in such a way that there wasn't a single moment I was even the slightest bit uninterested - there's a great flow to proceedings. Jay Baruchel is excellent throughout, so is Glenn Howerton. The whole cast do good work, amusing to see SungWon Cho (aka ProZD) appear too! I remember BlackBerry being huge at my high school back in the day, though based on the timeline shown in this movie it was very much during the company's spiral - guess our parents couldn't afford iPhones at that point!😂 I am still yet to own an iPhone mind you, guess I'm in the severe…