‘BlackBerry’ assessment: Geeky biopic recollects gadget the iPhone killed

In a 12 months crowded with product biopics — there are movies about Air Jordan sneakers and Flamin’ Sizzling Cheetos, of all issues — “BlackBerry” presents one thing totally different: tragedy.

Like Romeo and Juliet, the BlackBerry is doomed to die from the very begin. 

The street to damage, although, is a geeky good time — a “Revenge of the Nerds” with out faculty intercourse jokes however with billions of {dollars} at stake and a groundbreaking invention that also impacts a lot of the planet day-after-day.

That will be the primary smartphone, which 20 years in the past quaintly meant a cellphone that might additionally ship emails and do some rudimentary internet searching. 

In 1996, Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), Douglas Fregin (Matthew Johnson, additionally the director) and their one-room Ontario, Canada, firm Analysis in Movement cracked the code to create the BlackBerry in opposition to all odds. 

Their genius was twofold: They found out not solely the way to construct the cell system, but in addition the way to allow hundreds of the identical units to coexist with out crashing current mobile networks.

And, though missing the gravitas and ethical conundrums of Fb-centric “The Social Community,” Johnson’s dweebish movie turns each one among these tech breakthroughs right into a stirring victory worthy of “We Are The Champions.”

The fast and humorous script by Johnson and Matthew Miller flirts with condensed-true-story cliché, however largely comes off recent.

The corporate’s rise and comparatively speedy downfall start with the doorway of Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), a product government and hockey buff who joins Analysis in Movement to market their killer thought and get their funds in form. 

Balsillie is loud, brash and vulgar subsequent to meek and measured Mike, and Baruchel (who low-key has probably the most recognizable and endearing voices in Hollywood) and Howerton play off one another ideally.

So do the likable actors enjoying their Geek Squad of inventors, who’re dwelling out the comfortable campus life they by no means had, full with boisterous gags and no-work-allowed film nights. 

However as the corporate balloons — they accomplice with Cingular, their telephone is known as one among Oprah’s Favourite Issues and PalmPilot makes an attempt a hostile takeover — the group’s founding pleasure and far of the creativity exit the window in favor of determined grabs at revenue. 

After they watch Steve Jobs give his Apple keynote speech asserting the iPhone — with its touchscreen, music and full web browser — the look on their faces in Johnson’s muted-palate film says all of it: We’re screwed.

And it’s at that time, as unhappy inevitability sinks in, that the movie’s initially cracking power slips. 

Revelations of mismanaged funds and authorized improprieties are much less involving or frankly attention-grabbing than the success story that got here earlier than them. Mike and Jim change into distant, and we miss their humorous “Odd Couple” sparring. 

However that, in a method, mimics the crash-and-burn arc of the BlackBerry itself: from practically half of cellphone customers proudly owning one within the aughts to precisely zero in the present day.

For by no means was a narrative of extra woe.