Us Review

He's only two movies in and already I feel comfortable calling Jordan Peele one of my favorite directors working today. It's crazy to think how far he's come in just a short amount of time. Just two years ago he was simply one half of the comedy duo Key & Peele. And now he's suddenly skyrocketed into the realm of one of the most prolific directors of our day to the point where "Us" is about to enjoy a $60+ million opening weekend simply because "it's the new Jordan Peele movie." Very few directors can sell a movie simply by their name alone. I'd say Jordan Peele joins the likes of Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg when it comes to that. We just don't live in that type of era anymore. Movies are sold based on the franchise and studio, not typically by the director and the star like it often was in the past. But yet here we are. All that can be directly attributed to how huge of a cultural phenomenon "Get Out" was. It made such a huge impact that Jordan Peele won an Oscar for best original screenplay and the movie came close to winning best picture as well, this despite it being a horror movie released in February. Yes, good trailer reaction and strong reviews out of South by Southwest have helped "Us," but everyone wants to see what the guy who directed "Get Out" does next.

When it comes to "Get Out," I was floored. Leading up to it, I thought the trailers weren't very good. It looked like a strange, bizarre movie in a bad way and it was coming from a dude who had never directed any feature-length film before, let alone a horror movie. So I wasn't expecting anything from it. That is, not until reviews out of Sundance the month before came out and had the movie pegged at 100 percent at Rotten Tomatoes, a mark which it stayed at for quite some time. That's what floored me. The movie itself was pretty solid, too. I got a bit nit-picky with it in my review mostly because I thought the social commentary in the movie elevated it slightly higher than it deserved. Granted, I thought the social commentary itself was great. It had very important messages about racism that were told in a way that connected with a lot of people who have been victims of racism and was in turn eye-opening for those of us who might be more privileged. But having an important message can't be the only thing right with your movie. I had certain issues with the horror elements itself. Thus if we judge it based solely on horror standards, it wasn't even the best horror movie of that year, but I won't say much because because most of my questions had to do with the resolution.

On that level, "Get Out" was very comparable to "Black Panther." A lot of people loved "Black Panther" because it was the first major superhero movie starring a mostly black cast. I think it was fantastic that it did that, but I still need a good movie to go along with it. "Black Panther" had a very average story that was cut and pasted directly from "Hamlet" and "The Lion King," thus the story felt very boring to me and the action sequences were very generic. That's why I say that sometimes movies like "Get Out" and "Black Panther" are boosted more than they deserve because of the social commentary or social relevance of the film. Movies about racism will always be praised as the best thing since sliced bread simply because of the subject matter. And that's certainly not a bad thing to have movies like this. It's just that I get annoyed when people are willing to completely ignore a lackluster screenplay or slightly subpar filmmaking simply because the movie had something important to say. The best movies will get both aspects right, not just one or the other. All this said, if it feels like I'm throwing too many punches at "Get Out," I'll defend myself by saying that I bought the movie and have watched it many times. I still enjoy it even if I don't crown it as a horror masterpiece.

I feel comfortable spending that much time on Jordan Peele and "Get Out" for two reasons. First of all, I think it's important for you to have a bit of context in regards to my thoughts so that you can better understand where I'm coming from when I make the claim that "Us" is the overall better movie. Second, "Us" is the type of movie where the less you know going in, the better your experience will be, so I can afford to spend time talking about the movie's director and said director's previous film because I don't want to say too much about "Us." I'd prefer you just go experience it for yourself. On that note, I won't be talking about spoilers here in this review, but if you're a fan of "Get Out" and/or you like quality horror films, then my recommendation here is that you see this movie before you continue with this review. Come back afterwards and read my thoughts, then let's discuss because this is quite the film. The trailer does a great job of telling you exactly what this movie is all about, at least in regards to the premise. Where it goes is a whole different story. But we have a family going on a vacation, led by Winston Duke and Lupita Nyong'o as the parents, who start to see these strange figures at their house. Before too long, they realize that those figures are themselves.

That's all I'm going to say about plot specifics for "Us." Even that seems like I'm almost giving away too much as it takes a surprising amount of time getting to that point. But I don't know what else I'm supposed to say to describe this movie. That's why I think those less hardcore film fans who haven't seen any trailers for this movie, yet stumble upon it several months from now after having heard nothing about it other than it was a great movie, might have an even better experience watching this because the movie slowly builds towards that premise. It made me partially bored at the beginning because I've seen the trailer nearly 5,000 times and so I was just waiting for the movie to get to the point. In hindsight, though, I really appreciated that Jordan Peele took the time to properly set up this story. He didn't just throw a random family into a scary situation within the first 5-10 minutes of this movie. He let us get to know the family first. Winston Duke as the father was the goofball. Lupita Nyang'o as the wife was more of the straight-edge. Together they made for a really balanced couple. And their two kids were quite likable, albeit a bit strange at times. Thus overall we had a great family that I immediately began to care about, which is very important for a horror movie.

But yeah, then crazy things start to happen. The best way to describe this is that it's like a "Twilight Zone" episode. I could say "Black Mirror" since I've been watching a lot of that recently, but "Black Mirror" is more technology and social media based. "Us" is just straight up bonkers. Certain scenarios are set up and instead of questioning everything that's going on, you accept said premise and focus solely on what's going to happen to these characters and what's the overall point of this thing. The problem with a lot of horror films today is that you can tell the whole purpose of the movie is to earn a few quick bucks. There's not a whole lot of thought put into them. Characters you barely know get thrown into a scary situation and the movie spends most of the time with jump scares and loud sounds meant to make people jump with not much of a story to back things up. Jordan Peele has proven with both "Get Out" and now "Us" that he cares about doing things the right way. His purpose here is to tell a story. He does this by introducing us to this likable family, then throwing them into this wild situation. And that's when horror movies get real good, when you have characters you care about and a story you become deeply invested in. That's what happened with "Us."

Now in going back to the "Twilight Zone" comparison, the thing that often makes those stories so fascinating is that they are shrouded in mystery and intrigue. There's themes presented throughout that are intended to make you think and often things are left a bit ambiguous. Thus is the case with "Us." It's like one mega "Twilight Zone" episode on steroids. In fact, in one of the interviews I read with Jordan Peele talking about his reasons for making the movie, he mentioned inspiration from a "Twilight Zone" episode called "Mirror Image." That's season 1, episode 21 if you want to check it out since it's on Netflix. I went and watched that after I read that interview and I can totally see how he takes certain things that the episode lays out and runs with it in a feature-length horror film. As such, there's a whole heck of a lot that could be talked about in regards to "Us," but from a spoiler free review perspective, how do I do that? All I can do is talk about my range of emotions while I was watching, but even then I want to be careful. I'll just say that the movie had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. There's a level of uncertainty throughout that left me uneasy and Jordan Peele did a great job of playing with my mind as he took me on quite the emotional roller coaster.

This is a movie that demands to be talked about. Some horror movies are pretty cut and dry. You know exactly what is happening and the thrill of it is quite exciting. Jordan Peele, however, doesn't let you off easy with "Us." He challenges you mentally. Like "Get Out," this movie has a lot of strong themes that Jordan Peele is interested in sharing. Unlike "Get Out," said themes aren't as obvious and take a bit of work getting to them. "Get Out" is obviously about racism. There's a lot of discussion about what it's like for a black man to live in a white man's world. He's not trying to hide that. He wants you to walk out of that theater thinking about racism. "Us" is quite a bit more ambiguous with its themes. It's layered and complex. There's a lot of things that don't make sense. At least not initially. It's a movie that made me and my friend talk about it for quite a long time. Then I had to spend the rest of the night looking up videos and reading comments about what others thought of things. And now I feel like I need to let everything simmer for a while, but then I need to see it again. And I feel like the more I see it, the more I'm going to pick up and the more I'm going to understand. But at the moment, I have to be honest and say that I still feel very much in the dark.

Despite feeling like I'm in the dark, I still was thoroughly entertained. This is a situation that parallels how I felt when I first watch "2001: A Space Odyssey." I was the most confused person on the planet Earth, but I absolutely loved every minute of it. And the more I've seen it, the more I'm able to pick up on what Stanley Kubrick had to say with it. But I use the word parallel in comparing the two movies because I don't think "Us" will ever be on quite the same level of "2001," especially since they're not really the same genre. But it was a similar feeling. But that level of confusion means it's really hard to assign a grade at this moment. There are certain things that bother me quite a bit about this movie. And I posed those questions online and got answers, but some of the answers brought up more questions that bothered me. I legitimately don't know how my brain is going to make sense of certain things at this point in time. I need more thought and I need more viewings under my belt. But regardless of how things turn out, I can't deny that the experience of watching this movie was a fantastic one. This could end up being one of my favorite movies of the year, but I have enough questions to hold my grade back for now, so I'm going to play it safe and give "Us" a 9/10.