Ben Affleck’s ‘AIR’ currently has 99% on Rotten Tomatoes from 77 reviews

Ben Affleck’s ‘AIR’ currently has 99% on Rotten Tomatoes from 77 reviews.

Ben Affleck has seen critical praise for all but one of the movies he’s directed, but Air’s glowingly positive reviews and 98 percent Rotten Tomatoes score sets a new record. The first movie he directed, Gone Baby Gone earned a 95 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, The Town earned a 92 percent, Argo earned a 96 percent (and the Academy Award for Best Picture), and Live By Night earned a 34 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. Unfortunately, Live By Night was created during a low point for Affleck, and it impacted the critical reviews, but Air is a good sign that Affleck still has the skill he demonstrated with the first three movies he directed.

Prior to Air, Affleck’s average Rotten Tomatoes score as a director was 79 percent, which is pretty impressive considering Live by Night’s Rotten 34 percent score. Air elevates his new average to 83 percent. For perspective, Steven Spielberg has an 80 percent average Rotten Tomatoes score from 36 feature films and James Cameron has an 87 percent average from eight feature films. If it weren’t for Live By Night’s low Rotten Tomatoes, Affleck’s director average would be 96 percent. Affleck has yet to make a blockbuster on the scale of Spielberg or Cameron (and doesn’t seem interested after his experience with DC), but he’s clearly well-suited as a director for movies like Air.

It’s been quite a while since Ben Affleck directed a film. Although he was able to get his creative juices flowing again by writing the screenplay to the criminally underrated The Last Duel with Matt Damon and Nicole Holofcener, he hasn’t helmed a project since 2016’s critical and commercial disappointment Live By Night. Partnering with fellow producer and co-star Matt Damon once again, Amazon Studios’ Air seems like a calculated course correction for Affleck. Based on the incredible true story of Nike’s attempt to sign legendary athlete Michael Jordan in the rookie stages of his career, Air succeeds at being a crowd-pleaser that, while not exactly unique, reaffirms Ben Affleck’s status as a great director.

Ben Affleck approaches the true story of Air with a contagious energy. Immediately opening the film with the rockin’ sound of “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits accompanying a montage of the year 1984, there’s a very specific sense of time and place, bolstered by excellent production design work. A tasteful amount of film grain covers the screen, letting the fluorescent lights of the Nike offices appear warm and inviting rather than cold, as shot by the always-fantastic cinematographer Robert Richardson.

The fast-talking script by Alex Convery, combined with snappy editing work via William Goldberg, instills an urgency in this turning point for Nike. One almost forgets how this tale actually ends, since the pure stress of trying to secure this potentially company-saving basketball client drives Air forward.

Affleck is seeing an overall career resurgence after all the drama surrounding his time as Batman in the DCEU and well-publicized issues in his personal life, but thanks to his highly praised performance in The Way Back and his return to directing with Air, a movie about Nike signing Michael Jordan and the origin of the famous Air Jordan shoes, his career returned to a new high point. He’s been in movies spanning the entire spectrum of Rotten Tomatoes scores (at least one movie in every 10th of the scale from 0-10 up to 90-100), but Air represents a welcome return to prestige for the actor/director.