[Review] Us (5/10)

Title - Us
Studio - Universal Pictures
Starring - Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker
Writer - Jordan Peele
Director - Jordan Peele
Release - 22 March 2019

There was something fundamentally wrong with the core concept of Us.

I don't think Jordan Peele invested enough on world building in his second project and it ultimately hurt the quality of the story. I can now understand why the critical success of this sophomore project paled in comparison to the first one.

The whole notion of a doppelganger wasn't strong enough to begin with. The rules between the two worlds were even weaker.

If the doppelganger needed to follow every single action of the "real" self, how would the switch even happen. How would Lupita N'yongo's younger self break free from the binds? Why would she have to follow the actions of her doppelganger? Why rabbits? Why red jumpsuits? Why shears?

So many questions that just didn't make sense in this one. And I'm actually glad to see that critics are not letting him get away with a weak concept this time as compared to Get Out, which I already found many problems with and fully disagree with its Best Picture nomination.

However, N'yongo's performance was outstanding (though I wouldn't count on a Best Actress nomination).

There was also a weird shift in tone in the middle of the movie from straight up horror to some comedy that did not flow properly, especially with Winston Duke's character. His sense of fear just suddenly disappeared as he became more comedic.

This was definitely a disappointment as I was hoping to get another mind blowing horror story and it fell very short of that.