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Parents' Guide to

The Hummingbird Project

By Jeffrey Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 15+

Tech-caper story has salty language but no real point.

Movie R 2019 111 minutes
The Hummingbird Project Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

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Though it certainly looks and sounds like fun, this comedy goes through a great many plot mechanics while hardly scratching the surface of its characters -- and without ever coming to a point. Written and directed by Kim Nguyen (of the Best Foreign Language Oscar nominee War Witch), The Hummingbird Project initially feels like it's going to have the energetic cleverness and complexity of something like The Social Network or The Big Short. It feels like it ought to be "based on a true story," but it's actually not.

Despite Vincent's obvious similarities to Eisenberg's superb portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg, The Hummingbird Project fails to discover what makes its main character tick, other than a brief story about his childhood. (A cancer-related subplot feels tacked-on.) Anton, meanwhile, is a broadly characterized "socially awkward genius" type, and Ms. Torres is just an angry, barking villainess. The strangest thing of all is that in the end, the characters neither win nor lose. This is a story with no real ending and no purpose; it doesn't leave viewers with much of an impression. The ending that Nguyen does choose, which involves an Amish farm, might have meant something if the movie had been pared down and zoomed in on that particular episode. But as it stands, it feels like a hollow gesture.

Movie Details

  • In theaters: March 15, 2019
  • On DVD or streaming: June 25, 2019
  • Cast: Jesse Eisenberg , Alexander Skarsgard , Salma Hayek
  • Director: Kim Nguyen
  • Inclusion Information: Female actors, Latino actors, Middle Eastern/North African actors
  • Studio: The Orchard
  • Genre: Comedy
  • Run time: 111 minutes
  • MPAA rating: R
  • MPAA explanation: language throughout
  • Last updated: December 4, 2022

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