Is it possible for a movie to suffer from too much creativity? That sounds like a silly question, like asking if a field can suffer from having too many flowers, or if a painting can have too many colors. Creativity is where cinema is born, the driving force that shapes an idea into moving images and sound. Without it, all our screens would be blank, their lack of intrinsic value exposed as they cast our listless expressions back at us.

With only one previous feature film to his name, 2018's Sorry to Bother You, multi-hyphenate Boots Riley certainly has a boundless amount of creativity. Its absurdist plot featured no less than African-American telemarketers using their "white voice" to make better sales, human-horse hybrids, and a revolution centered around workers' rights. Only one of those three things returns in Riley's newest feature, I Love Boosters, and it's not the things that require you to change your voice or grow hooves.

A revolution is much needed in this surrealist, yet all too real version of the Bay Area. Everyone is severely overworked and underpaid, especially aspiring designer Corvette (Keke Palmer) and her friends Mariah (Taylour Paige) and Sade (Naomi Ackie). To make ends meet, the trio is "boosters," shoplifting clothes from expensive fashion stores and selling them cheaply on the street to everyday people. It's all done under the guise of leveling the playing field, as if stealing the clothes is an act of reclaiming the abuse of labor that went into their making. This reasoning is glaringly thin when Riley is introducing us to these characters, testing our ability to align with their morals despite their repeated speeches about bringing power to the people.

"Now is not the time for nuance" is a line repeated several times throughout the film, each subsequent utterance being done with increased force. There's a sense of frustration within Riley's material, convincing himself that he needs to double down on the plight of the proletariat since we obviously didn't get the message in his previous feature. Granted, things have gotten much worse since 2018, so his penchant for rage isn’t unwarranted. Corporate greed has become even more naked in the years since, and Riley approaches that reality with the fury of someone tired of asking politely for change. The problem is that fury alone can only sustain a film for so long before it begins to feel repetitive, especially when every scene is pitched at the same level of manic intensity (see Alina Kanin’s kazoo and recorder soundtrack).

That intensity is where I Love Boosters both thrives and collapses. Riley throws ideas at the screen with reckless abandon, constructing a cinematic world where advertisements feel like threats, fashion becomes a weaponized symbol of class warfare, and every side character seems to exist on the verge of either a nervous breakdown or an uprising. There are moments of brilliance scattered throughout the chaos, flashes of inspired satire that remind you why Riley became such an exciting voice in the first place.

Yet the film rarely slows down long enough to let those ideas fully land. Riley's dialogue can be wickedly funny, but it also has a tendency to flatten his characters into mouthpieces for larger political arguments. Corvette, Mariah, and Sade are charismatic enough to keep the film watchable, largely thanks to the performances from Palmer, Paige, and Ackie, but they never entirely escape the gravitational pull of Riley's messaging. Their humanity is frequently overshadowed by the director's desire to make sure every theme is underlined, circled, and screamed directly into the audience's face.

Perhaps that brings us back to the original question. Can a movie suffer from too much creativity? Maybe the answer is yes, but only when creativity exists without restraint, when every idea is treated as equally important, and every moment demands maximum volume. I Love Boosters is overflowing with imagination, anger, humor, and ambition, often all at once. Sometimes that combination is exhilarating. Other times it's exhausting. But even at its messiest, Riley's work never feels lifeless, and in today's cinematic landscape, that alone carries a certain value.

Neon will release I Love Boosters in theaters nationwide on May 22nd.