Rating: 3/5
Jordan Peele has cornered a specific method of making movies — something visually striking with a lot of set pieces, and if things work out, they’ll thematically fit together in the end
Us is a great movie visually, but it requires a lot of leaps to have any coherent meaning. Nope is even worse at this, and I refuse to jump through the hoops here to get at something more profound. I’m not saying you can’t do it or that there isn’t anything deeper going on in the movie, just that I’m not interested in that conversation
Functionally, this is a lot closer to Shyamalan than Spielberg, where every tiny detail of the movie is put there for a third act “oh shit!” that only sometimes serves the film itself
Overall, this is an expensive, “exquisitely stupid” movie. I would have enjoyed this more if Jordan Peele’s name wasn’t attached — and thereby setting expectations — but I still wouldn’t have loved it. That doesn’t make it a bad movie at all. It just means it isn’t what I look for in movies
I am glad to see more action horror movies with black leads. I am glad this has a unique take on the thing’s design. I am glad that Jordan Peele is making movies that people like, and I’m glad that you like it
** SPOILERS / Stray Thoughts **
The moment OJ seemed to know everything about the alien — and predators in general — I mentally checked out. The dialogue stopped making sense to me — “breaking” the alien like a horse? It’s all a mudslide of bullshit to get to the final spectacle
The Fry’s guy talks about them saving the planet… by catching it on camera? Of course, they accidentally kill the alien, so they do save the world, but never once do they act under any other motivation than making money