Jexi (2019) * *

Directed by:  Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

Starring:  Adam Devine, (voice of) Rose Byrne, Alexandra Shipp, Michael Pena, Wanda Sykes

Jexi takes its concept, updated from 1984's Electric Dreams and 2013's Her, and squeezes it for every comic drop it's worth.    It has its funny moments, and later moments which make you cringe, including a guy who kind of, sort of has sex with his cell phone.    I suppose such a movie moment was inevitable.   

For those of you who did not see Electric Dreams, which I will wager is most of you, it is a movie about a lonely guy who buys a computer which takes over his life and jeopardizes his budding romance with the girl downstairs.    In both movies, the computer develops feelings for its owner, only to wreak havoc when rejected.    Part of the issue with Jexi is the phone (voiced by Rose Byrne) is so coarse, profane, and rude that when it does a 180 and falls for the owner, it is more like a screenplay twist than a convincing turn. 

Phil Thompson (Devine) is a twentysomething guy glued to his cell phone and dependent on it for everything, including mapping the best route to work.   I can't imagine why Phil would need to GPS his route to work every day, but there we have it.   When his beloved phone breaks, he buys a cheaper model with a defective interface named Jexi,  a wiseass version of Alexa to which you don't want to trust your credit or bank information.   Phil is a lonely, awkward fellow with few friends and a dead-end job at a clickbait website working for an insufferably egotistical boss (Pena-who is criminally underused and provides the biggest laughs in the movie).   Note to filmmakers, if you are fortunate enough to have Michael Pena as part of your cast, use him to the fullest.

Jexi promises to make Phil's life better, while not exactly being nice doing so.   He can't simply trade his phone in because Jexi is on every phone he gets, nor can he just throw the phone away because he is so dependent on it.    Phil's life begins to change when he meets Cate (Shipp), a sweet and bland young woman who has zero chemistry with Phil, even though the movie insists they have it in abundance.   Jexi grows jealous of Cate, and proceeds to screw with Phil's life.  

We're expected to believe that Jexi, after putting down Phil throughout most of the movie, suddenly has feelings for him.    We go along with the plot, but we can't buy this swerve.   Jexi was simply too mean and condescending to Phil in the first place.    It's not a love/hate relationship between Phil and Jexi, it's more of a sort of like/tolerate relationship.     Devine is a genial screen presence, conveying just the kind of guy who would have quasi-sex with a cell phone.    You'll see it, and hope you never have to see it again.