Affleck’s diamond-studded comedic timing and commitment to telling a compelling story well give it oomph.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 18, 2024

Air is a quick-paced entertainer with glib dialogue, humour and a wonderful sense of nostalgia for the 1980s.

| May 30, 2023

Once you’ve made peace with those really narrow parameters, what you see on screen – ie virtually nothing of Jordan himself – kind of works.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 17, 2023

There’s not an ounce of fat on this film’s physique, and Affleck keeps the pace moving even though everything that’s happening is entirely driven by the dialogue.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 14, 2023

Affleck is a fine actor and a better-than-fine director. As an actor since childhood, his skill at selecting the right actors and allowing them to do their best is to be expected. He also has an exceptional sense of narrative structure.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 14, 2023

Affleck, the cast, crew and script put you in a time capsule and take you back to the ’80s.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 13, 2023

Nostalgia is the only reason I can think of to explain why old friends Ben Affleck and Matt Damon reteamed for a movie that so artlessly sets out to make us love shoe company Nike for buttering up a college hoops star better than Adidas or Converse.

| Original Score: 0 | Apr 11, 2023

While much of Affleck's casting choices in Air err on the side of superb, one pivotal choice is repeatedly jarring: He doesn't cast Michael Jordan.

| Apr 11, 2023

The script is pacy, the tone is consistent, and Affleck’s deft direction commands a raft of skilful performances from an ensemble who rarely puts a foot wrong.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 10, 2023

For all its affable charm, there’s something slippery and disingenuous about this film.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 9, 2023

"Air" is effortlessly entertaining, but it wants to be about more than just the marketing triumph of an underdog shoe company.

| Apr 9, 2023

The film certainly invites fists to be pumped in celebration. It is less certain Air offers any meaningful critique of the society that gave us the sacred gutty.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2023

Affleck’s return to the director’s chair is an exceptional success, stimulated by its script and cast.

| Apr 7, 2023

The decision to deny Jordan a character presence... conspicuously muzzles a pivotal character and it’s clumsily out of step with a movie that is otherwise the definition of carefully considered, precisely told, error-free film-making.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2023

As much as we can talk about the thematic resonance of Air, its impact is dependent on your personal connection to Michael Jordan. It’s like going to church as an atheist — you might be able to follow the story, but its meaning is lost.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 7, 2023

Air mainly takes place in drab offices, yet the cast’s expert performances transform those spaces much in the same way that Michael Jordan transformed courts and sneaker racks -- by turning them into sites of magic.

| Apr 7, 2023

It’s a feel-good fable for a culture that doesn’t know how not to win, and it’s going to be huge.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 7, 2023

The film wants to be a wing-ding entertainment, but it also strives to say Something Important. The first half of that equation is what makes the movie eminently worth watching.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2023

Air is great. Pitch-perfect, deeply entertaining.

| Apr 7, 2023

The boldest thing I can say about Air is that it follows the tried-and-true underdog sports movie formula, only none of its main characters even attempt a shot much less sink the game-winner at the buzzer.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 7, 2023