Leslie Jones Makes Movies Better

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There are some actors, particularly comic actors, that have a certain quality that when they are on the screen you can't take your eyes off of them. They used to call it the "It" factor. That's certainly the case with Leslie Jones. On Friday her new movie Masterminds comes out in which she plays the detective tracking down the bumbling criminals played by Kristen Wiig and Zach Galifianakis. In just the trailer Leslie made me laugh. When I went to see Ghostbusters earlier this summer it dawned on me that Leslie Jones is one of those actresses that's a film saver. Even if the movie is kind of bad, you come away saying, "Yeah but Leslie Jones was totally awesome". I did not like Ghostbusters and not for the reason a lot of whiny trolls on the web didn't. I don't care that the cast was women, what I did mind was the weak script, bad editing, and inept direction on the part of Paul Feig. Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy were totally wasted. But when Leslie came on the screen it suddenly became a comedy again. She was the best part by far of that movie.

But it's not a surprise because she'd been doing the same thing on Saturday Night Live for years. Let's face it, that show hasn't been funny in a long long time. We keep it around for the same reason we keep an old dog that's blind and arthritic around, we love them for what it used to be and are used to living with it. But Leslie saved sketch after sketch on that show. Whenever I would watch clips from the show, (because who can honestly sit through that whole show), I knew that Leslie would one day be a break out star. She's just starting on her film career now but I anticipate that she's going to be even bigger than she already is and that's saying something. 

Check out the trailer for Masterminds.