US

US

I'm going to make a hot take here. I didn't think US was great. In fact, I thought it was a hot mess of a sophomoric outing and I'm a little annoyed by it. First off, none of the funny shit was actually funny. None of the scary shit was actually scary.

I enjoy laughing at movies and I'm consistently scared by even the lamest scary movie. I'm not a hard mark to get across either of those two emotions.  But when I got home I slept like a fucking baby without any small ounce of concern or even effected by the message. It had very little spook factor to it all even though it's a film that was billed as a home invasion horror. The home invasion stuff is a small part of the film and not even that was all that remarkable.

Also, it did not think that the movie should have been a whole two hours long. I mean, when someone ask Alexa to call the police and it plays "Fuck the police" by NWA, I mean.. el oh el, but then again, they don't follow that up and write it off as just the system is overwhelmed. It was filled with a lot of groan worthy moments and it seemed like every actor was in a different movie. You could have cut out the rest of the family and the movie would have been 40 minutes shorter and a lot more interesting to do just a character study of the sort of invasion of the body snatcher concept.

It also wasn't very deep. It wanted to be filled with symbolism and it was basically a "I'm 14 and this is deep" level of thought process to the whole fucking thing. Wouldn't it be so fucked up if this tethered lady doppelganger smothered make-up on it's face. As if the clone wants to be hooooooooooman. Let's spend 8 minutes on this roaringly deep concept even though the tethered version would have put on make up a billion times by this time in their connected life. 

When the twist came about at the end, It felt like someone slapped a three week old fish on the counter and acted as if this was some catch of the day. It just tried too fucking hard. Which I don't mind if it fails on that part, but the ride throughout the movie was not worth the pay out. I would be better about it if the trek through the film was at least funny or scary or enjoyable

Then there's this plot hole that I can't scratch. It's like the fundamental motivation of the characters and it's all strange. Why set up a rule that the up-side people control their tethers? Then just have it break, only to be used in certain instances again when it was needed like with the little boy and the fire pit.

Aren't horror films suppose to have a more stern approach to their rules that they themselves establish? Isn't that the device that allows you to suspend disbelief and enjoy yourself? This movie just shits all over them for the sake of a scare.  If the tethered people could ignore the puppet rules sometimes, why does that kid walk backwards in to the fire? If they can ignore the rules, why is it such a big deal that they're puppets. They made a big stink about it in the down below area that they were forced to mimic all these actions and it just didn't make any fucking sense any more.
 
 You have this government situation that they were doing this cloning shit just to mind control folks? Like, what the fuck was the point of all that bullshit? Especially in the era that the movie started. That just seemed silly. Also, the fucking rabbits. what's the point of all that anyway?

They made a big deal about how "Red" had to rip a baby out of her clawing it. Like, what the fuck was that about? That the control was so strong that the little boy burned himself constantly, not really explaining why the fuck the little kid clone was face burned other than, I guess it was cool to show it that way? No clue. 
 
Now that I think about it, why the fuck did they do the hands across America statement if they were just going to kill their tethered person. Like, who the fuck was that even for? I love Peele, he has a good eye for freaky shit, but this was just a mess. This was an Episode 1 sort of thing where Lucas didn't have anyone who had the balls to tell him that his idea isn't very good and he should consider condensing it down or something.    

More than anything, he needs someone to tell him that he should really lay off that tear going down people's face. I mean, the guy just loves doing that shit. And while I'm only a few hours away from watching the new Twilight Zone, where his social commentary would be better suited in a proper place, I felt this was a total misfire as a horror and as a social commentary. It's just totally inept at generating any menace or sense of building tension. The "tethered" shadows.

In general, I felt like the fundamental conceit of the film failed and if that fundamental idea of the movie doesn't hold water, then I can't give it a pass to all the other issues with the tone and the writing of it. I think the line "We're Americans.." line is where I started to really hate the movie I was watching. 

I get that I'm in the minority in this opinion and well, that's perfectly fine. I'm not trying to make you change your opinion on the film we both watched, but the flaws just are too big for myself to move past it.