Huge let down! Peele still shows promise though.

Rating: 6/10 (27 March 2019)

I'll do my best to avoid any spoilers, but I need to vent a bit haha. Us was such an infuriating movie for me. It was one of my most anticipated films of the year, and I wanted so badly to love it, but it was so frustrating and dissapointing I couldn't believe it. It definitely was not all that it should have been. The setup in the first third was amazing, and even afterwards there were bits of brilliance sprinkled throughout as well as a lot of genuinely funny sequences and lines (Peele's talent is undeniable, and his roots in comedy are easy to recognize). However, (mild spoilers) from the moment the tethered sat down with the family in the living room, and Lupita Nyongo's doppleganger started talking in that stupid af voice, the movie took a sharp turn for the nonsensical and stupid and it was never really able to recover. The ending was all kinds of bad and seemed determined to make no sense whatsoever. The twist was obvious from the first scene (which maybe was intentional but probably not) and was actually super poorly handled and then beat over our heads. In fact, at times it honestly felt like Peele thought the audience was retarded.
That said, I'll give some credit where it's due, this film is much more interesting than most typical mainstream horror films we get these days. It's also 10x more ambitious and undeniably original (though it still does fall back on cliches now and then). Peele is exploring some very clever ideas, but unfortuneately they are never paid off in any satisfying way. It seems to be trying to say something about class warfare and the United States, as well as the mistake of not pursuing one's dreams, but the messages/takeaways never become even remotely clear. They're quickly abandoned in any case for what turns into a mostly rudimentary survival thriller (with much better than average comedy). It utterly fails at being either a horror film or a sci-fi film, as it's not scary and the sci-fi elements are laughably contrived and mishandled. With that said, even though the film isn't as accomplished as it should be, it still might have worked, or at least been more effective, if Peele had either explained more to the audience or made things much more ambiguous. As it stands, the plausibility of the several of the key reveals that shape the foundation of the story don't hold up for a second, and as a result the whole movie ends up failing in a big way because you can no longer take the premise seriously. Even worse, the few throwaway lines that do attempt to explain away some of these issues feel like afterthoughts, and instead of providing compelling answers they really only make things more confusing and less believable. This really hurts the film because we are expected to just accept them and move on but they're much too distracting and ultimately ruin an otherwise engaging and exceptionally well crafted movie.
All in all, Us was a major let down and I can't say that I enjoyed it. However, while Peele's reach clearly exceeded his grasp on this one, I'll still be first in line for his next movie because I honestly really liked Get Out (seriously, Get Out was so amazing and 100% polished. I can't believe he immediately went on to make this). Even with the flaws of Us, Peele continues to show a ton of promise as a horror filmmaker, and since horror is my favorite genre and I admittedly think he's a really cool dude and have been a big fan of his since his Comedy Central days, I'm being honest when I say I would actually love to see him succeed at making solid and kickass horror movies for decades. Maybe he really could be this generation's Hitchcock. Time will tell. Unfortunately, the chance of that may be diminished by the perplexing and overwhelmingly positive response to this movie, as it seems to have a seriously bad case of the emperor's new clothes going on. I'm hoping the hype dies down around this film and people start seeing it for what it is, a well intentioned misfire littered with pacing and structural issues and a bunch of underdeveloped ideas that have no payoff. Though with the tidal wave of praise and positive validation Us is recieving, I worry Peele won't feel the need to course correct at all and won't learn from any of his mistakes. Let's hope this isn't the case and his next film is a return to form.
6.5/10
(Get Out was an easy 9/10 for me).