The strangest thing about Jordan Peele finding his voice

Rating: 7/10 (7 February 2020)

There's nothing more cringey to me in film when a Director over-explains everything in interviews or behind-the-scenes. Sure there are complicated, or layered or esoteric films to which I would love to know the answers, or what was in the Director's head, however knowing it is like a spoiler; I want to know, but I never ACTUALLY want to know, I want to be surprised, I want to come to it on my own.
Jordan Peele, by doing this, doesn't put the elements he likes about his film, in the actual film. By having to explain it means that he hasn't worked well enough or hard enough to fold the themes and ideas into the film sufficiently. If I can't read some theories or speak to some friends and come up with the answers ourselves (a sort of unique and magical thing) and instead I find that the Director has to tell me, then the film isn't as good or as clever as it is dying to be.
That's my most painful comment on the film; Jorden Peele, you don't tell me what i'm supposed to see in your material - thats not how films work - the material should have all the components for discovery in there.
Aside from that, it's got an absolute orgy of half-baked but tremendous ideas, scenes, dialogue, character moments and horror homages. As a home invasion and doppelganger genre flick it succeeds spectacularly, unfortunately as a message-movie, or a science-fiction, it fails mostly. Despite the race and identity politics and the smatterings of post-Trump themes; the most interesting elements of the story are untouched here; it's clearly the experiment that the government did, all that stuff we didn't see; how the clones are born, the horror of it, the discovery of a soul and how it affects those without, the people who feed them and make them, the corporate and government conspiracy elements of it, which could have been a scathing commentary of now, how the tethers work etc etc. All of that is the most interesting material.
Us also has a million stupid ruinous plotholes - even if you can put most of them away to enjoy the true wit and verve and confidence of the picture, and the cleverness of how it uses its cost-effective budget, the plotholes are so supermassive, they derail the flow at every opportunity. i won't even detail them here because they're all so blatant and numerous.
So I appreciate this film, I appreciate Peele's gonzo Black Mirror but bonkers vibe, I appreciate what he's trying to do. It's no Get Out, but it's a well shot flick with a genuinely tremendous performance by Lupita Nyong'o, it's oscar-worthy, it's deeply scary, it's clever and dedicated.
Us has got an Alexa gag that works, a Shaun of The Dead-worthy conversation about kills in the car, and a scene involving a remix of I Got 5 On It that's an elegant and beautiful and memorable and ballsy scene, one of the best.
So Us is a good ride, it's a fun horror, horrific, tense, surprising - just don't look at the nuts and bolts that hold it together. And even though I called the twist at the very start, I'd still re-watch this film in the hope that I'm able to 'get' it better next time.