I DON'T HAVE ROOM FOR SECONDS...!

Rating: 6/10 (25 March 2019)

Jordan Peele's much anticipated follow-up to his Oscar winning smash is a bit of a sophomore slump which is a shame given the fact a recent Rolling Stone article had him detailing how he watched other filmmakers second string outings to avoid the case but unfortunately his over-reliance on a world encompassing narrative falls short due to logistical problems & issues of character motivations which in total seem harebrained rather than organic in execution. Its 1986 & an African American family are at the boardwalk when the daughter decides to do some exploring finding herself in a house of mirrors where she encounters a doppelganger of herself which leaves her traumatized & unable to speak. Flash forward 30 years, the girl is now a grown woman w/a family unit of her own (hubby & 2 kids, a boy & girl) out on a vacation which finds them (you guessed it!) back on the same beach from years before which leads to series of events where twins of themselves appear to wreck havoc on the world at large & our family has to step up to meet this existential wrinkle to their very being. And this for me is where the film starts to fall apart where the lookalikes, who are imposing their will to survive over their originals, impart a murderous spree upon the populace but the motivations (especially after we find out who the defacto leader is) become specious & crudely drawn. When the film sticks to its chamber horror conventions (the 1 family being terrorized by their 1 set of duplicates) it works but when we see the global implications of the ending (ala The Birds) the ambiguous ending seems ill thought out & hard to swallow but seeing this movie will make its money back (it made $70 mil in its opening week & debuted at number 1) hopefully the filmmakers will use that knowledge to improve their next effort (storywise) instead of wallowing in the land of easy expectations & quick profits.