Us

Rating: 7/10 (31 March 2019)

US
2019
15
director:Jourdan Peele
starring: Lupita Nyongo,Winston Duke,Elizabeth Moss,Shahadi Right Joseph and Evan Alex etc
overall rating 72/100

Us frustrated me, because there was so many excellent components but it was its few big weaknesses that let it down considerably lets talk about why this is.
Lets start with one of the main positives for us, its fantastic acting. Elizabeth,Shahadi and Even all deserve respect and credit for taking on such a challenging role in this film. As they had to play two alternate versions of themselves which requires a lot of skill and they all did an excellent job with both of there roles. And made a very believable close family so they should all be applauded for there efforts here. Also Winston Duke was fantastic here as well as well as having the talent to play two versions of himself he also added a lot of humour and charm to his character and seemed to be a great dad in the film so hopefully this will bring him more work outside of black panther in the future.
Another positive for this film would be its fantastic score. Whether it was catchy songs from the 90,s or to add tension to scenes the soundtrack was really executed perfectly . And it even felt like it had a sci fi feel to it as well. It really added a lot more impact to the more frightening scenes, as it prepares you for whats coming and its never something good.
The next big positive for me would be its very tense and creepy tone. This film despite in my opinion not necessarily being scary it was certainly tense. So tense my fists were clenched for most of the film. The scenes were dragged out and silent which really kept you on the edge of your seat unsure about whats going to happen so this was executed excellently.
Next however i will say that i did not like some of the pacing in this film. The pacing was way to slow, there was often nothing happening in the first 30 minutes, and when something scary or emotional was going to happen it was either cut off so nothing happened or it was disappointing. so I wish they had more consistent scares or interesting scenes only in the first act as they did admittedly make up for it in the later acts.
Next i liked the horror elements and despite being limited the films jumpscares as well. I would call this film a thriller/slasher movie with a flavour of horror. Often the situations shown to us with the doppelgangers were more disturbing and creepy. And the jumpscares from them were admittedly very effective as Jourdan Peele did a fantastic job of misleading the audience into thinking one thing and then surprising you. He is truly becoming as everyone else is saying a master director but he needs to improve on his overall plot which i will talk about in a later paragraph.
The next positive for me would be the films humour. There was a good blend of laughs and terror. The main source of comedy did come from Winston Duke. His character was hilarious he was the stereotype dad who tries to be cool with his kids and it really brought out a lot of laughs with the antics he got into with his children.
The next positive would be the films gore. There was a lot of blood in this film so it is certainly not for the squemish. But i really felt the gore added to the impact of each scene with the doppelgÃ¤ngers. Jourdan Peele went all out and did not hold back with the amount of gory scenes which i loved
the penultimate positive for me would be Jourdan Peeles uniqueness and creativity with his plot i will get into the negatives of this soon. But i have to applaud Jourdan for creating something unique. I cant compare it to anything else so it really felt like a fresh and new experience whilst watching the film i hope he keeps this kind of creativity up.
My final main positive was the shining star of this film Lupita Nyongo. She is an absolutely phenomenal actress. She delivered every role. The caring mother,she was funny and over protective.And did a phenomenal job playing her evil counterpart seriously her performance was horrifying in a good way. The way she moved and spoke really was frightening to watch and i believed everything she did i really believe she is a star and should have a very busy schedule ahead of her.
Finally my main massive negative for this film was that most of the plot in the film did not make sense at all. I got what they were trying to do with the plot twist but it was not executed well at all and just made the whole film not make sense. I walked out of the film asking so many questions to myself about why they made certain decisions in the film. They were all stuck under the tunnels for years but they should not of been under the tunnels for that long as the little girl escaped it just frustrated me the lack of sense a lot of the film actually had as if they had got this right the film would of been nearly perfect.
Overall Us has so many fantastic qualities to it but it was the few big issues with the film that brings it down and Jordan Peele needs to fix this in his films otherwise this will effect the quality of his future films.