Us - Review

Us

Director Jordan Peele takes another stab “Literally and Figuratively” at another suspense thriller film in his sophomore effort simply called “Us”. A story of a mother – wife named  “Adelaide”, her husband, son and daughter going to the beachfront home where she grew up as a child.

Little does anyone know she is acutely haunted by a traumatic experience from her past as a small child. As “Adelaide grows increasingly concerned that something bad is going to happen to her again, her worst fears soon become a reality when four masked strangers descend upon the house, forcing the Wilsons into a fight for survival. When the masks come off, the family is horrified to learn that each attacker takes the appearance of one of them.

REVIEW. “Us” ………….Hmmmmmmmmmmm? Where do I begin. I did not care for it.

With any horror or suspenseful psychological thriller film, out of personal habit I immediately start looking for clues. Some are more blatantly obvious, and others are more surreptitious by design. It’s my auto reflective way of me trying to mentally discern what might be the big reveal at the end of the story.  “What will be the crescendo moment?” “What was the entire journey all about”? So, in the case of the film “Us” the first 30 + minutes were in fact rather intriguing and promising through its random use of biblical scripture quotes, the abundant use of red color, songs potentially offering hidden message clues and camera close ups at commercial products placement sitting randomly about. When you include the use of night time darkness, elongated shadows and the background sounds of foreboding thunder and lightning, people bumping into three way mirrors and strange people simply making quick strange glances at each other, at  the very minimum I thought I was pretty well loaded with just enough suggestive hints to eventually be able to reflect upon at the films conclusion.

In addition, Director Jordan Peele crafted an opening that was in fact brilliantly reminiscent to the style and look of two of my favorite directing greats in Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock. His effective use of minimalist conversational relevant dialog, some beautiful luxurious cinematography, very stylized camera work and long periods of suspenseful silence, the introduction to this suspense laden mystery was effectively framed early to put this viewer on his very suspicious toes.

But soon after the parents and kids arrive at their summer vacation home near the beach and the eventual red cladded doppelganger strangers do show up at their home at night (conveniently so) with their garden scissors in tow, the film became for me nothing more than an excessively way too long of an hour of endless displays of sporadic random ambiguous detached scenes one after another. Scenes ranging from some unconnected but effective humor to other scenes more suited for a terminally flat comedy like a “Madea” movie,  to others scenes that were an unexpectant exercise of excessive bloody violence that would go back to being even more confusing than a  minute before.

Oh, and least I forget the sound effects used in the film. Specifically, the strange voices and sounds that were emanating from mouths of theses mysterious doppelganger visitors or ghosts, or zombies or space aliens or whatever they were meant to be. They sounded less like fearful ominous figures and more like a bunch of Velociraptors from a Jurassic Park film whose eyes balls were bulging out of their heads because they forgot to take their thyroid medicine.  I was not sure if I was supposed to be frightened at that moment by their presence, amused by them, or both.  I can say I was occasionally amused by them, but more often than not (over time) I was more confused by them. Certainly, at no point was I ever frighten or fearful of them.

On a positive note, Lupita Nyong'o who played the mother “Adelaide Wilson,” the matriarch of the Wilson family and  Winston Duke who played the father “Gabriel Wilson”, the patriarch of the Wilson family, they seemed early on like on the surface like a genuine sincere loving family; very effective and believable as husband and wife casting goes. But soon after the chaos arrives the father - husband Duke “Gabe” character became so damn annoying to me by his overly “wimpy unmanliness manner” I was hoping some  harm would come to him. Hell, I wanted to stab his ass by the end of the movie, which I may add he almost disappears off the screen in the last 30 minutes. Strange. 

And I have not even mentioned the displays of poor parenting  skills on show case in the film where you see on two occasions the parents were just out right idiotically guilty of "will - nilly" letting their children wander off on their own and equally baffling by the parent tolerance of their kids basic modicum lack of respect towards their parents. Eventually I found the entire family as a group less and less empathetic.  

As an ardent film fan, I am a militant snob about this one fact. Regardless of the genre of a the story the loose ends in the beginning of that story should be working towards something meaningful and conclusive that ties up the whole story with some clarity. And even if you are going to making a story a bit weird, eccentric or off beat,  then make the weirdness or off beat-ness or eccentricity have a purpose. ‘Us” while very watchable for its 2 hours running time, the overall the entire arc still failed for me as a flawed structure of incoherent satire.  And while I know at times I may be guilty of having a case of the “Ole man-itis” when it comes to fully understanding this generation's ideas and stories of what is socially relevant to them,  I found the social conscious subplot aspects of this 1986 to present day connected story and its conclusions not compelling at all.  

Director Peele has lots of talent and I will truly be looking forward to his other works in the near future. But his ideas here of what was dramatic felt more like me listening to a biology science professor trying to explain to me while watching under a microscope an Ant taking a piss on cotton is important and intriguing. Just because he uses science as the backdrop for his reasoning its still an oversimplification of something totally irrelevant masquerading as  being sweeping and grand. The fact is for me, I found "Us" sweepingly dull, very repetitive, pointless, fragmented and just baffling to understand or care about.

 “Us” is a one time “WTF” watchable experience……………….But just once. Even if I wanted to ruin this movie for you, I cannot say with 100% certainty what this 2 hour journey was entirely about. 

I will assure you of one thing however, in about 18 months from now I will not be channel surfing on my basic cable to see this again.

2.75 Stars