There has been a recent spate of corporate biopics in the same vein of 2010’s “The Social Network,” which highlight their respective products through the lens of innovation. “Air” is arguably the most prominent, along with “Tetris” and “BlackBerry.”

“Air” dramatizes the story of how the Air Jordan shoe line was created, following Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), Nike’s basketball talent scout. It’s 1984, and the shoe giant is floundering in the basketball shoe industry, as they are not only a lot less popular than Converse and Adidas, they also have a lot less money to spend on endorsement deals for players. Sales are so bad that the board is pressuring CEO Pil Knight (Ben Affleck) to shutter their basketball shoe division. 

Nike Marketing Vice President Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) and Vaccaro lead the department, which has enough money for endorsements from a handful of draft picks further down in the draft. Vaccaro, who knows the most basketball of anyone at the company, gets stuck on Michael Jordan, who he sees greatness in despite the fact that he hasn’t yet played on an NBA court. He painstakingly convinces everyone to pool all their resources into Jordan, who initially won’t even take a meeting with them, essentially putting their eggs all in one basket. 

That’s usually a foolish move, but it pays off when you manage to secure arguably the greatest player of all time. 

The film covers the conception of the shoe — portrayed as the product of a few all-nighters over a weekend — which took the rare route of crafting the shoe around the player and his personality (it claims to be the first shoe to do this, which is not true). It also featured more red than was allowed by the NBA, which Nike agreed to pay the fines for. 

It is a bit odd seeing a product get the same biopic treatment as influential political figures, innovators and famous artists — perhaps it’s indicative of a lack of original ideas for Hollywood. But the film does work, at least as a narrative. Vaccaro is a misunderstood underdog who can’t quite explain what he does to those outside of Knight and Strasser, who decides to bet his career on Jordan on a gut feeling. This provides a good sense of stakes, as while everyone else in Nike’s basketball shoe department could probably find jobs elsewhere, Vaccaro might not. 

With that being said, the film is essentially a nearly 2-hour advertisement for the Air Jordan brand and it’s important to note that framing. Jordan was involved with the film, so it is unsurprisingly not a scathing critique of almost anyone involved — except nameless Nike shareholders and the company’s competition. 

That’s not necessarily a bad thing — “The Lego Movie” is an example of this type of corporate movie done right — but it’s important to be aware that the film can’t be mistaken as an honest portrayal of its subject matter and has an agenda. To be fair, that’s something virtually all biopics are guilty of — they dramatize events, sometimes combine multiple people into one character or vice-versa (make one person multiple characters) and even edit important real-life people out of their stories entirely. They’re made to entertain first, educate second.

 “Air” is well-crafted junk food, offering very little outside of making Vaccaro, Nike and the Air Jordan brand look good. It doesn’t have anything to say outside of its underdog story, which is done well, but leaves the film mostly empty beyond its surface level enjoyment.

“Air” gets an 8/10