Capitalism Gets a Beatdown

Read Time:7 Minute, 42 Second

MOVIE REVIEWS
I Love Boosters
–

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Action
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 53m
Director: Boots Riley
Writer: Boots Riley
Cast: Keke Palmer, Taylour Paige, Naomi Ackie, Poppy Liu, Demi Moore, LaKeith Stanfield, Eiza González, Will Poulter, Don Cheadle
Where to Watch: available now; order your copy here: www.moviesunlimited.com or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: The first thing that sticks with you about I LOVE BOOSTERS isn't the shoplifting, the politics, or even Boots Riley's willingness to make capitalism look completely ridiculous. It's how aggressively alive the movie looks. Colors are everywhere, clothing practically demands its own screen credit, physical gags are tucked into backgrounds, sets seem governed by different laws of physics, and the movie has enough visual personality to embarrass plenty of movies costing far more.

That's important because Riley isn't using all that excess simply to make something pretty. I LOVE BOOSTERS takes place in a world where fashion is simultaneously creativity, identity, labor, theft, status, and an absurd way of deciding who gets treated as important. Riley answers by making the movie itself look like it refuses to behave properly. It rarely settles down, sometimes to its own detriment, but something is refreshing about watching a filmmaker make choices this big without apologizing for them.

Keke Palmer plays Corvette, the leader of the Velvet Gang, a crew of shoplifters who steal expensive clothing and sell it to people who could never afford the original prices. Corvette doesn't see what they do as simple robbery, and the movie doesn't either. These women understand that the clothes sold as luxury goods didn't magically appear in immaculate stores, and Riley keeps redirecting attention to the labor, exploitation, and cultural borrowing hidden behind the price tag.

The clever part is that I LOVE BOOSTERS doesn't turn that argument into a lecture stretched across nearly two hours. Corvette and her crew are funny, messy, impulsive, and frequently ridiculous, which keeps Riley's politics tied to real characters rather than turning everyone into a mouthpiece. The movie clearly knows what it's angry about, but it would rather throw that anger through a storefront window than deliver it from behind a podium.

Palmer is exactly the actor Riley needs at the center of all this. Corvette can jump from complete confidence to barely controlled panic while still feeling like the same person, and Palmer has enough natural comic timing to survive dialogue that might sound bizarre coming from somebody else. She also gives Corvette the energy of someone who genuinely believes she can outsmart a system designed to keep people like her struggling, even when the evidence starts suggesting otherwise.

Taylour Paige and Naomi Ackie give her strong support as Mariah and Sade. At the same time, Poppy Liu adds another distinct personality to a group that could've easily blurred together in a movie this crowded. That's one of Riley's better balancing acts. The Velvet Gang operates collectively, but the performers find enough small differences in behavior and attitude that the group feels assembled from individual people rather than characters wearing matching political beliefs.

On the opposite side sits Christie Smith, the fashion empire figure played by Demi Moore. Riley could've made Christie a straightforward corporate villain, but straightforward isn't really something I LOVE BOOSTERS does. Moore leans into the character's absurd privilege without losing the colder reality underneath, and some of the film's funniest visual ideas come from showing how completely her wealth has separated her from normal existence.

That includes a home where the floor itself becomes an expression of power. Christie can move through her environment comfortably while everyone else struggles with it, turning a ridiculous physical gag into one of the movie's simplest observations about class. Riley repeatedly finds ways to make inequality something characters can literally trip over, run from, or have dropped on top of them.

The craftsmanship deserves as much attention as the cast because this movie's look is inseparable from what it's saying. Shirley Kurata's costume design treats clothing as character information rather than decoration, constantly shifting patterns, shapes, textures, and colors without making the screen unreadable. Christopher Glass' production design works with the same mentality, building spaces that exaggerate the differences between wealth, commerce, and the places people scramble to survive.

Natasha Braier's cinematography manages the difficult job of photographing all that without letting the movie collapse into visual noise. Riley keeps throwing more into the frame, but much of what we see retains a handmade quality. Practical effects, deliberately artificial miniatures, animation, and other old-fashioned tricks coexist with the more elaborate imagery, which gives I LOVE BOOSTERS a physical personality that feels increasingly rare.

Tune-Yards' score pushes the movie even further. It's playful without simply instructing us to laugh, and abrasive when Riley wants the world to become uncomfortable. The music, along with the costumes and production design, makes this feel like one creative decision after another rather than a conventional movie with unusual decorations added afterward.

The problem with making nearly every idea enormous is that they eventually start competing for space. Riley introduces concepts, supporting characters, visual jokes, bits of science fiction, political observations, and side stories faster than the movie can always develop them. Some threads seem ready to become important and then drift elsewhere. At the same time, other ideas arrive so loudly that it's difficult to tell whether they're building toward something or simply joining the parade.

That looseness occasionally hurts the characters most. Corvette remains strong enough to hold the movie together, but the wider ensemble doesn't always receive the same attention that the film gives its concepts. There are moments when you want I LOVE BOOSTERS to stay with these people slightly longer before Riley discovers another idea he wants to chase.

Normally, that kind of excess would bother me more. Here, the ambition makes it much easier to forgive because Riley isn't throwing random weirdness at the screen to disguise an empty story. Even when an idea doesn't completely connect, you can usually understand why it's there and what part of the larger argument it belongs to.

The fashion industry makes an especially effective target because Riley can attack consumerism while also celebrating personal style. I LOVE BOOSTERS isn't arguing that caring about clothes is foolish. It questions why creativity and culture become property the second someone with enough money figures out how to sell them back to the people who helped create them.

That distinction gives the movie more substance than its deliberately ridiculous exterior initially suggests. The Velvet Gang steals, but the larger world surrounding them has already normalized far more profitable kinds of taking. Labor gets undervalued, ideas get repackaged, culture gets monetized, and luxury prices turn ordinary objects into symbols of who supposedly belongs where.

Riley understands that none of this needs to look miserable just because he's angry about it. I LOVE BOOSTERS is funny, loud, horny, brightly colored, politically direct, and occasionally exhausting, sometimes within the same scene. Its lack of restraint is both its greatest strength and the reason it stops short of being even better.

Still, I'll take a movie overflowing with personality over one afraid to risk looking foolish. I LOVE BOOSTERS doesn't always control everything it throws onto the screen. Still, there's genuine excitement in watching it try, especially when Palmer, Moore, the costumes, the production design, and Riley's visual imagination are all pulling in the same direction. At 4 out of 5, it's unruly in ways that sometimes frustrate, but far more often make you wonder why so many movies are satisfied with looking and sounding exactly like everything else.

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