'They Cloned Tyrone' review: Entertaining mash-up of sci-fi, comedy and Blaxploitation

WHAT IT'S ABOUT A vast conspiracy underpins "They Cloned Tyrone," the new Netflix movie starring John Boyega, Teyonah Parris and Jamie Foxx. 

It revolves around a cloning operation, unfolding in gigantic labs staffed with white-coated workers and built under cities across the country. Main characters Fontaine (Boyega), a drug dealer, Yo-Yo (Parris), a sex worker, and Slick Charles (Foxx), a pimp, uncover the truth over the course of the picture, a blend of many different genres that ends up playing as its own thing.

Juel Taylor, whose screenwriting credits include "Creed II," makes his feature filmmaking debut, with Kiefer Sutherland and David Alan Grier among the co-stars.

MY SAY "They Cloned Tyrone" sports elements of science fiction and Blaxploitation, with a healthy dose of broad comedy and '70s-style paranoia mixed in, all laden with social commentary.

That's a lot for a movie to congeal into a cohesive whole.

But Taylor shows a veteran filmmaker's grasp on how to balance the different tones. There's a strong visual style running through the movie, as the pulpy thriller surfaces and neo-noir touches effectively intermingle with the futuristic sci-fi settings. This filmmaker knows these worlds and understands how to present them in a way that feels both familiar and new.

It also helps that underneath it all, Taylor has a real and meaningful story to tell, one that evokes some of the most shameful American historical chapters in its portrayal of a faceless bureaucracy experimenting on Black communities.

That underpins the story and remains palpable even when the plot veers in absurdist directions. What might seem outlandish and strange on the surface, particularly the extent to which the conspiracy at the center of the movie permeates even the smallest and most inconsequential elements of daily life, becomes far less so when it's placed in historical context.

The depth here, the substance below the unmistakable style, also gets drawn out thanks to the performances.

Boyega, best known for his appearances in the recent "Star Wars" movies, remains an actor of uncommon smarts. If you've only seen him play Finn in that galaxy far, far away, you haven't seen anything close to his full range.

In Fontaine, Boyega presents a broken person who cannot begin to comprehend the reasons why he has become this way. The journey toward that fuller understanding is rife with moments of significant trauma, others that require a hard edge and still others that reveal a kindness and empathy that has been submerged for too long.

Throughout it all, even as the character finds himself drawn down some unfathomably strange paths, Boyega remains in total control of these fundamentals, cutting a genuinely compelling figure.

He's ably supported by Foxx, who has a great time providing heaping doses of comic relief, and by the excellent Parris, who takes what might have been an unfortunate stereotype, shakes it up and complicates it.

BOTTOM LINE It's entertaining, smart and made with the confidence of a filmmaker with a deep understanding of these varying genres and styles.