Back in 2018, Boots Riley made his cinematic directorial debut via the surreal social satire Sorry to Bother You. Eight years later, he finally brings his follow-up, 2026’s I Love Boosters.

In the San Francisco area, friends Corvette (Keke Palmer), Mariah (Taylour Paige) and Sade (Naomi Ackie) collaborate as the “Velvet Gang”, thieves who usually rob from stores owned by designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore). Though they do this to survive in a difficult economy, they also feel they provide a public service because they made Smith’s absurdly expensive clothes available to a less affluent clientele.

After Corvette goes through an unlikely encounter with Christie, Smith steals one of Corvette’s designs. This sends the Velvet Gang on a mission of revenge and retribution.

While both Bother and Boosters bring comedies that critique a capitalistic society, they came at their topics in different ways. In particular, this reflects their opening acts.

With Bother, Riley kept the story and situations fairly straight at the start. He allowed matters to get weirder as the tale progressed, a choice that worked for a while but eventually backfired, as the film’s final section almost negated all the positives that preceded it.

For Boosters, however, Riley sacrifices realism almost from the get-go. While we get some basics about the economic realities confronted by the main characters, the movie delves into wackiness and a detachment from believability very quickly.

This damages the movie’s social message because it becomes impossible to take matters seriously. I get that Riley probably thinks he can get across the commentary more easily with laughs but it just turns everything into a cartoon.

And a disjointed, muddled one at that. In his audio commentary, Riley tells us that he gets bored easily.

This becomes apparent throughout Boosters because it comes packed with ideas that change rapidly. On one hand, I admire Riley’s inventiveness.

However, little of this comes together to make real sense. It feels like Riley pursues one topic briefly, gets tired of it and hops to another conceit – lather, rinse, etc.

Even with more consistency and a narrative that doesn’t become so over the top that it loses any sense of real-world impact quickly, Boosters suffers from its cartoon vibe. The score usually sounds like a Danny Elfman ripoff, one that leans heavily toward the Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

That kind of music worked for the 1985 Tim Burton classic but it diminishes the social themes of Boosters. Again, a movie that tosses one weird concept after another at the viewer paired with relentlessly Looney Tunes score seems undisciplined and silly.

Despite the general emphasis on the Velvet Gang, Boosters goes down other rabbit holes. Some work better than others but too many feel unnecessary and superfluous.

I do respect Riley’s ambition and he demonstrates a lot of inventiveness. Unfortunately, Riley can’t cobble these ideas into a movie that ever turns into anything more than a collection of nutty scenes.

Footnote: about 10 minutes into the end credits, a bonus scene materializes.

I Love Boosters appears in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. A native 4K production, the image largely looked good.

Overall sharpness worked fine. Some stylized softness crept in at times but most of the film seemed accurate and concise.

No concerns with jagged edges or shimmering manifested, and I saw no edge haloes. Print flaws remained absent.

Boosters enjoyed a little of the usual amber and teal but it broadened to a much wilder palette a lot of the time. This meant vivid and lively colors.

Blacks seemed firm and deep, while low-light shots brought appealing clarity. Ultimately the picture satisfied.

In addition, the film’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack worked nicely. Music became a lively partner, as score and songs spread around the room in an involving manner.

Effects came to life via the movie’s more surreal/sci-fi moments. These used the channels to create a compelling sense of place and action.

Audio quality seemed solid, with speech that always appeared natural and concise. Effects appeared accurate and dynamic.

Music showed nice range and impact. This wound up as a good soundtrack.

A few extras appear here, and we launch with an audio commentary from writer/director Boots Riley. He delivers a running, screen-specific look at story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, stunts and action, cinematography, effects, costumes, music, and influences/inspirations.

For the most part, Riley touches on fairly technical elements and doesn't dig into the film’s themes or intentions much. That disappoints but we still get a decent view of the production.

The Making of I Love Boosters goes for 32 minutes, 19 seconds. It mostly consists of shots from the production or film/storyboard comparisons but we also get some on-the-set notes from Riley, production designer Christopher Glass, executive producer Michael Jackman, construction coordinator Ben Nichols, assistant costume designer Lindsey Hartman, costume designer Shirley Kurata, key makeup artist Autumn McKenney, hair designer Jessi Dean, and actor Naomi Ackie.

“Making” takes us through various aspects of the movie’s creation, though as noted, we only sporadically hear from filmmakers. This ends up as a good glimpse of the production.

A Blooper Reel spans nine minutes, 19 seconds and shows the usual goofs/giggles. A few interesting outtakes emerge along the way, though.

Three segments appear under Interviews. We get segments from Boots Riley and LaKeith Stanfield (9:22), Keke Palmer and Demi Moore (8:33) and The Velvet Gang (actors Ackie, Taylour Paige, Eiza Gonzalez and Poppy Liu) (8:18).

Across these, we mostly hear about characters and performances but some other production elements pop up as well. The clips come with some insights but often lean into happy talk a lot of the time.

A Gallery presents 30 stills that let us glimpse some behind the scenes and pre-production elements. It becomes a nice compilation.

The disc opens with an ad for Leviticus. We also find two trailers and for TV spots for Boosters.

At its core, I Love Boosters wants to offer a pointed piece of social commentary aimed at distance between the haves vs. the have nots. While creative, the movie becomes too absurd and loosely constructed to achieve the desired impact. The Blu-ray comes with very good picture and audio along with a mix of supplements. Though I appreciate filmmaker Boots Riley’s audacity, he simply fails to turn this stew of scenes into a coherent and purposeful narrative.

Note that this Blu-ray version of I Love Boosters does not appear as a standalone release. It comes paired with the movie’s 4K UHD version. Nonetheless, I figured the Blu-ray deserved its own review since this two-pack becomes the only way for those without 4K UHD players to see it.