Those moviegoers who are attracted to stories about work dramas and their clashing egos will probably want to see Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber (2022), with which Brian Koppelman and David Levienwriters of rounders (1998), The judge (2003) or Ocean’s 13 (2007), tell for Showtime the trajectory of the controversial mobility provider company that taxi drivers from half the world hate.
The kind of plot about the goings-on of successful technology companies reminds us of those of The social network (2010) either Halt and Catch Fire (2014-2017), but the scripts lack the wit of Aaron Sorkin’s penned for David Fincher’s Facebook movie and the emotional strength of Christopher Cantwell and C. Rogers’ penned for their series on Lee Pace’s Joe MacMillan and company.
With an energetic visual style and a supposedly powerful verbiage, Brian Koppelman and David Levien seek to approach proposals like the two mentioned, but theirs not you can rub elbows with these referents. And not because this couple has not shown good work in billions (since 2016) to catch the viewer with the resounding words of its protagonists. But here they do not succeed, and that’s it.
‘Super Pumped: The battle for Uber’ entertains but does not make us fall in love
There is some flashes of eloquence indisputable from time to time, but it is not the habit of super-pumped during the first seven chapters. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt tries pretty hard to play Travis Kalanick’s asshole, but the scripts he’s provided don’t help him rank to the same degree in charisma as Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg or the aforementioned Joe MacMillan.
However, the series by Brian Koppelman and David Levien does achieve two things: firstly, be interested in the clashes in which Uber must have its way to stay afloat as an innovative company; and on the other hand, that we stand with its founder and against his powerful opponents even though he is ultimately shown to be a very unpleasant guy.
Because the writers of Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber They know how to sell us their history like that of those who fight for technological progress against the usual reactionary forces; the same as that of the nineteenth-century Luddites, who tried to make tapioca as many mechanical looms as they could get their hands on, or the owners of car and stagecoach businesses by rail or automobile, because they went against their usufruct.
And Brian Koppelman and David Levien don’t mess around, but introduce direct speeches on this matter in the mouth of Travis Kalanick, and then we do find enough glibness for us to buy it without question. But super-pumped does not stop there, and jumps to mercantile and internal confrontations, a less attractive concept due to the more insubstantial oratory, but that entertains.
In the end, we do not regret having dedicated our time to it
The vivid montages to lighten long processes are not surprising but we are pleased, and the occasional use of graphic and video game images and the breaking of the fourth wall. However, the true visual and narrative success of this Showtime series, a simple detail, is the fictions of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Travis Kalanick that end in chroma green and the immediate recognition of reality.
The electronic soundtrack composed for Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by the young Brendan Angelides, who has previously contributed those of the aforementioned billions wave of for thirteen reasons (2017-2020), agrees with the class of dynamic music with an obvious technological bouquet to which we have become accustomed to this type of argument. From those of The social network Y Halt and Catch Firealready mentioned, until Steve Jobs (2015) or The circle (2017).
This first anthology season improve as you go and, as of “War” (1×03), an inertia is maintained at a certain level in its preparation, and the reasonable doubts that the public could harbor to continue until the seventh and last episode should vanish. And even though we know super-pumped he distances himself from the mirrors in which he looks at himself, one does not regret having gobbled it up.