“Sneaks” is an exciting, funny, heartwarming, joyful, and endearingly wise adventure, set in a dazzlingly vibrant New York City, with lively music by composer Terrace Martin and songs from producer Mustard. Plus many shoe puns, for example: “We don’t talk, we Converse.” As we hear in the opening song, “My sneaks can do anything; it’s like magic right in front of me.”
Sneakers are more than footwear; they are a cultural phenomenon connecting the worlds of sports, music, fashion, entertainment, commerce, art, and sometimes crime. In the midst of a story about purpose and connection the movie thoughtfully explores the way the characters all have different and sometimes shifting ideas about what makes the shoes valuable.
Here, the sneakers tell their own story, centering on siblings Ty (Anthony Mackie) and Maxine (Chloe Bailey), a brand-new pair of gold and white Alchemy 24s, valued by a young basketball player who wants to wear them, a collector who wants to display them, and a forger who wants to slice them in half so he can produce and sell knockoffs.
Ty thinks of himself as a work of art, not an item of clothing. He wants to be on display in pristine condition, so he can be admired. He says, “I prefer a pedestal, maybe a motorized turntable with some dope lighting.” Maxine believes her purpose is to be worn, every scuff a badge of honor for the contributions she wants to make to the life of the person who wears them. “Every inch of our tread was made to be part of something bigger.”
Ty and Maxine are the grand prize raffled off at a huge convention of sneaker-heads. A man-mountain with a slobbery bulldog known as The Collector (Laurence Fishburne, who also produced) buys two hundred tickets. The young basketball player who trips over the soles that flop down from the tops of his shoes is Edson (Swae Lee), who has just one. And yet somehow, Edson wins the raffle. He is overjoyed that he will be able to wear the shoes at the game that night. But The Collector tracks him down and steals them. Or, he tries to steal them but Ty falls out, and The Collector arrives at his high-tech lair with just one.
The rest of the movie is Maxine trying to escape and Ty trying to find her, with many challenges and new characters along the way. Ty is befriended by street-smart sneaker J.B. (Martin Lawrence), who agrees to help him find Maxine in exchange for some of Ty’s bling, tiny jewel-like decorations. This leads them on an adventure that includes several different neighborhoods, transported by the Borough Board Express, a skateboard that zooms at hyper-speed, steered by sneaks Sky and Rayssa (voiced by skateboard stars Sky Brown and Rayssa Leal).
Their travels take them to the park, Harlem, and a fancy wedding, where they meet some fancy, fashion dress shoes that are very high-end, in both senses of the word—these are shoes with some serious stiletto heels. One of them is J.B.’s ex, Adriana (with Macy Gray’s distinctive husky purr). Along the way, three pairs of shoes that are hanging from a telephone wire deliver meta-commentary as a kind of Greek chorus. Meanwhile, Maxine and her new friends are trying to escape from the highly secured Collector’s apartment.
The outstanding visuals bring the city’s neighborhoods to life and a spectacularly dynamic sense of space and motion that matches the hip-hop-infused score. Shoes know how to dance, and there’s a dazzling, Busby Berkeley-style musical number. The character design is clever and heartfelt, making the shoes’ facial expressions wonderfully expressive. The shoes’ laces act as arms, which is very effective for emphasis and the acrobatics in the action scenes. The voice talent is top-notch all the way through. This might be Lawrence’s all-time best movie performance. Most of the voice actors are musicians, making excellent use of their sense of rhythm and timing and their gift for storytelling. It’s clearly told from the heart and as exhilarating as putting on a new pair of kicks.
