Krishna
This is from the director of Get Out. The director, Jordan Peele himself is an interesting character. After playing one of the comedy duo in TV’s Key and Peele and through Bob’s Burgers, he suddenly changed character as the writer plus director of the acclaimed Get Out in 2017.
That movie was great and was noticed and nominated for several awards. So when the second movie, Us, came out, and immediately garnered a very high score on Rotten Tomatoes, the expectation was sky high too.
It is not as great as expected. No, it is not a flat movie and there are moments of tension and the story in a vague way is interesting. But it does not even hold up to close inspection. That is why I would not call it as great as Get Out. Read on to know more.
There are some interesting cast decisions. Both the main characters, Winston Duke who plays Gabe Wilson and Lupita Nyong’o who plays his wife Adelaide Wilson have connections to the superhit Black Panther.
The acting is great and the tension is kept to the very end. But then the story? It is not very robust.
The movie has its moments : from very near the beginning, the story takes off and you have a huge surprise. The family of four (the couple mentioned and the two kids Zora Wilson and Jason Wilson suddenly see one night four people standing on their drive way. Gabe Wilson goes to investigate, he finds that the four are exactly like them four (right down to the mask worn by Jason) but are wearing red overalls rather like prison overalls.
The family attacks them and they manage to barely escape. There is also an amazing scene at the boat where Gabe battles his twin.
The whole thing is confusing in the beginning until they explain and some pieces fall into place. Now, there is a back story for Adelaide. When she was a kid, she wandered away from her parents for a while and walked into a house of mirrors. She suddenly found an ‘image’ that did not move as she moved but was looking away. Then it turns and stares into her face.
When Adelaide is found and is back, she seems to be in a great shock, having lost some memory and even the ability to speak and it takes a lot of attention from parents to being her back to a normal childhood. She, of course, grew up and married Gabe.
** Spoilers coming.: Please do not read if you plan to see the movie and do not want to know **
The explanation for this is that the government has created a whole pile of people underground. These were cloned from real people. Why? Not very satisfactorily explained. And how did they get access to the DNA to everyone? Not explained but presumably collected at birth.
They survived barely, not allowed to move above ground and imprisoned. Then there is this notion that even though they were created as a separate body, ‘the soul could not be duplicated and so they share a soul’. Whatever they do above ground, the people underground repeat. Go figure.
Still, their leader (the twin of Adelaide – called Red) is able to plan an elaborate rebellion. Still, the duplicate of Adelaide, when a child, had no difficulty meeting her twin in the house of mirrors. They all do not seem to be able to talk. And so on and so on. And those actions are not reflected in the ‘twin soul’ of Adelaide who lives above the ground. Why was Adelaide not moving weirdly replicating the movements of the girl underground who seemed to be independent when all the others underground were following the actions of the people above?
Why did the ‘duplicate soul’ link break when they all came aboard? Why were they able to move and try to kill their above ground twins? Only in one interesting scene does the twin follow the actions of Jason are replicated by the twin. All other times, they kind of ‘forget’ to copy the above ground person. Go figure.
You have to swallow a heck of a lot of things before you start enjoying the movie.
The storytelling is on par with Get Out. The acting is good and there are some really tense scenes – for example in the neighbour’s house when they go to them for help.
The ending is totally confusing. Given that the twin insurrection is everywhere (in the US) where did they decide to go? Mexico? How come none of the ‘evil twins’ decide to move to Mexico? Why did they have to kill exactly their above ground twin? So many questions so few answers.
Look, you can go and see it because it is a fun movie but like the animated movie Hercules made by Disney if the story is completely illogical or if they take convenient detours from their own logic when it suits them, it just irritates a logic seeking viewer like me.
5/10
– – Krishna