Jexi is a 2019 comedy about what can happen when you love your phone more than anything else in your life.
Phil (Adam Devine) works for a large internet news site, wanting to be a legit journalist but for now, is stuck in the ‘lists’ department, writing about things like Cats That Look Like Ryan Gosling (they all do if you look close enough). Thing is, he, like so many of us, is addicted to his smartphone, dependent on it for just about everything and nearly stuck with it out in front of his face at all waking moments. That’s how he meets Cate (Alexandra Shipp), literally running into her on the street, getting an instant crush on the girl (who has purposefully unplugged). Hopelessly glued to the technology, when his iPhone gets trashed, he panics and buys a new Chinese phone with a digital assistant named Jexi (voiced by Rose Byrne). The A.I. is super advanced and incredibly sassy, giving Phil plenty of attitude, taking it upon itself to change his life.
Nothing about Jexi feels all the relevant, maybe missing its punch by at least five years, clearly taking its nods from Spike Jonze‘s 2013 film Her. And not all that surprisingly, Jexi is a 90-second comedy skit spread out to a very thin 90 minutes. Admittedly, the set up is funny, with directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore loading the screen with images of a public obsessed with their phones, arranging things to look like it might have some proper commentary.
Unfortunately, it is nothing of the sort, stripping away the potential for sharp social smacks, instead taking the opportunity to be crude and juvenile playing in the usual sandbox with all the expected toys. It tries to use the technology to take some jabs at modern life and sure, a few will feel identifiable but doesn’t challenge itself at all, sticking to the obvious, landing on jokes that are certainly near their targets but rarely more than a blip. You’ll smirk just because, yeah, you’ll think, “I do that.” Sort of.
Absolutely, Devine is committed to the comedy, as he usually is, earning his place as his generation’s lovable nerd, embracing the time’s demand for raunch. And Byrne leaps off the cliff in giving Jexi a ferocious edge, turning the Siri-type into a super foul-mouthed, savagely antagonistic A.I. who at first seems to be targeting Phil for harassment before, well, you can guess. She gets the biggest laughs. I also liked Shipp, as she is easily the most human of all the people in this cast, which includes Michael Peña as a ridiculous boss right out of TV sitcom central casting.
There is a lot of appeal on the surface of Jexi, immediately offering up some ideas that should click and a clever way to add some life to a hopelessly generic character and plot. No doubt, fans of Devine will stick with it, but the film ultimately loses all its traction in going to new places. It’s just too bad the movie doesn’t explore this more, never navigating out of the tried and true ruts of a standard romantic comedy, feeling like it needs an upgrade.