'They Cloned Tyrone' Review: An Enjoyable High-Concept Comedy
Despite some narrative stretches in its latter half, Juel Taylor’s ‘They Cloned Tyrone’ remains an enjoyable watch.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Juel Taylor makes his feature directorial debut with a screenplay co-written by himself and Tony Rettenmaier and puts John Boyega’s Fontaine in a middle of a massive conspiracy after he finds a clone of himself inside a mysterious underground lair. Fontaine was shot and killed the previous day after an altercation between him and Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx). However, he mysteriously wakes up the next day alive and well. That’s when Charles and Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris) suspect something is wrong and bring along Fontaine for the ride to uncover the town’s conspiracy.
That’s about the only thing that can be written about They Cloned Tyrone without spoiling anything, as the pleasure of watching something like this usually means you shouldn’t watch a single trailer or read about the movie before going into it. To be fair, the trailer does a great job of not revealing the film’s overarching mystery and posits the movie as a conspiracy thriller more than anything else. Unfortunately, it’s when the movie’s big reveal occurs that They Cloned Tyrone begins to falter,
It’s going to be difficult to not reveal exactly what the ‘meat’ of the cloning conspiracy is, but when a certain someone shows up on screen (you’ll know who) and reveals what audiences have been patiently waiting for to piece the puzzle together, it falls quite flat on its face. It is fun to have an actor who wasn’t revealed to be a part of the main cast showing up to lead the film’s final hour, but the twist isn’t as memorable or as impactful as it should be. It’s almost as if Taylor wanted to do a semi-riff on Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, where a massive twist completely changes the direction of what the first hour set up, but its script is nowhere near on the same level as that movie.
The twists also don’t make sense. Again, without spoiling a single thing, the more the movie starts to peel the layers of the initial conspiracy, the further it contradicts itself. That leaves the movie's final twist to fall completely flat on its face instead of it being a reveal that changes the entire course of the film. The movie's first half is far more enjoyable because of how Taylor and Rettenmaier introduce the characters and the trigger element before it jumps the shark into a last half that is at times compelling but not as strong as what came before.
It’s great that Boyega, Parris, and Foxx are this good because the movie would’ve been a complete failure without them. Boyega, in particular, is the film’s highlight, showcasing how versatile he can be by playing Fontaine and his clones, who may or may not have the same personality. He’s been done especially dirty by the confines of franchise filmmaking in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and to see him play with different tonalities here showcases exactly how starring in films that didn’t benefit him in the slightest was a huge mistake and missed opportunity for Disney.
He shares great chemistry with Parris and Foxx, who are equally as great in their own right. Foxx is the group's comic relief (it’s great to see him in this after he suffered a medical emergency in April 2023), whilst Parris’ performance is more grounded than the three. The pair perfectly balance out one another during its 124-minute runtime as they slowly realize that things may not be as they seem. Its use of needle drops adds lots of style to the movie, especially the great Diana Ross’ “Love Hangover” being used in a pivotal moment, or Alicia Myers’ “I Wanna Thank You” is another integral part of its rich tracklist.
Aesthetically, They Cloned Tyrone is terrifically crafted, with cinematographer Ken Seng perfectly capturing a 35mm print emulsion with the cigarette burns, film grain, and lifelike color palette. It makes for a stunning movie to look at, though it would’ve greatly benefited from a wider theatrical release where audiences could’ve truly observed the film at its fullest potential.
It’s a shame that the movie quickly loses itself as it strolls. It doesn’t have a longer runtime than Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, but it feels much longer than that. Its high-concept hijinks are interesting but not as well-developed as they should be. Still, They Cloned Tyrone remains an enjoyable watch, mostly due to the incredible work brought upon by Boyega, Parris, and Foxx, who give their all inside an aesthetically intricate and fun conspiracy comedy. If you’ve witnessed the Barbenheimer and are looking for something else now, look no further.