my Movie

Movie Details

Title:   Us
Director:   Jordan Peele
Year:   2019
Genre:   Thriller
Times Seen:   1
Last Seen:   11.12.22

Other Movies Seen By This Director (2)
- Get Out
- Nope

Notes History
Date Viewed Venue Note
11.12.22InternetThis Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2022
There be spoilers here for this movie. Ye've been warned.

When Get Out came out, everybody talked about it. Like, Everybody. I feel like I liked it pretty good but maybe didn't freak out? But it was a good movie and it definitely hit at the right time and maybe it was a surprise from the funny Key & Peele dude?

When Us came out, people didn't really talk about it. I took that to mean that it sucked.

The trailer showed something to do with doppelgangers, so that's the only thing I knew about this going in. Unfortunately, that was enough for an idea to come to me 15 minutes in that I spent the entire movie hoping wasn't true.

Like, I'm not one to go searching for christmas presents. I did that once as a kid and found it harder to pretend I hadn't seen it and act surprised on the day, knowing it was down there but inaccessible was worse than not knowing. But after I stopped looking I'd still literally run into them, like my mom didn't think that because she wasn't tall enough to see on top of the fridge didn't mean it wasn't exactly eye level to me. It's the same with movies. I don't spend the whole time trying to figure it out, really. If it's supposed to be a twist then I'm hoping it works on me, which is why it sucks when people say there even is a twist because that can't help but put your mind in a place to think about what it could be.

So... back to this... i "figured it out" right at the beginning. not that it helped in any way. It doesn't really matter if it turns out that the main character is the double/clone/whatever if the whole concept of the doubles/clones/whatever doesn't make any sense. Like making up words. Ah hah! The jodhpur was the rigamarole the entire time! ok?

so this underground tunnel network was home to an entire duplicate population subsisting on raw rabbit and mimicking their "surface" selves? How do they get the right clothes? what happens when the surface one dies? or has sex? It just opens a can of worms that is too much for me to extend my disbelief that far. Not even getting into who did the cloning? or where did they go? how do they have power? I mean an abandoned mineshaft is one thing but that had a working escalator. like a shopping mall. It's too much.

But I will say this. I like that they shot in Santa Cruz. I thought it was a sly reference to a movie being shot on the carousel circa 1986. I liked Peele's style in having the main characters behave in realistic ways. I was never bored, the movie moved along with a tight pace, the horror/thriller elements worked well with creepy kids and whatnot. There was some stuff here to like. I didn't have a bad time with it.

It's just that the premise demanded an explanation, like telling the audience that there's gonna be a twist then having that twist be that the people are fucking cosplayers living in some park the whole time. Unsatisfactory.

Let's see if his next one is any better.