WHAT TO WATCH: "They Cloned Tyrone"

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John Boyega plays a brooding, down on his luck drug dealer who's shot dead at the beginning of "They Cloned Tyrone," a loosely plotted, fitfully delightful sci-fi suspense-comedy which mixes Michael Crichton-type paranoid thriller vibes from the 1980s, a seedy Blaxploitation grind house look from the 70s, along with stiletto-sharp modern satire. It also has one of the best comic performances of the year from Teyonah Parris, who just about steals the show. 

Minutes after Boyega is shot dead, he awakens at home. He wasn't dreaming, we learn, he was cloned, and for reasons too amusing and ghastly to spoil. Some have compared "They Cloned Tyrone" to "Sorry To Bother You," a masterpiece of social satire and suspense, and though it's not quite as ambitious or as successful, it priorities are also different. More than anything, "They Cloned Tyrone" is out to deliver a groovy good time. If a joke doesn't always land, or a scare is less than jolting, you only have to wait a few minutes before another hits a bullseye. 

That it succeeds overall is due in large part to the actors, including Boyega, who brings a bracing, slow-burn gravity to the proceedings. At the other end of spectrum is the newly recovered Jamie Foxx. Yes, you've seen him play this type of hyped-up, screaming meme pimp before - his day-glo costuming is one of the movie's better sight gags - but this isn't a lazy performance. He's honed his technique over the years, and at this point, his slapstick and fast-patter routines are jeweled, like those of Eddie Murphy or Martin Short. Yet the movie's break out performance comes from Teyonah Parris, who plays a Nancy Drew-loving prostitute aiming to be the next Woodward/Bernstein. 

This Juilliard-trained actress takes what might have been a cliched, funny-bunny role and all but reinvents the archetype, finding laughs on top of laughs even when they aren't in the script. This means that she can turn a toss-away line like, "This soda flat," into a major comic highlight with just the barest of snide infections, haughty posturing and carefully hooded eyes. As an actress, you simply can't predict how she'll play a scene, and that's part of what makes her such a vital, even galvanizing, screen presence. She's Judy Holliday, but redefined, ricocheting through this movie like a Class-A ding-a-ling and a wiseacre brainiac. If there's a sequel, she deserves to be front and center. 

Photo Credits: Essence/Roadside Attractions; Netflix

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