Yeah, no thanks.
If I didn't know any better, I would say this was absolutely the second movie from a director who made a pretty good, but waaaaay overhyped first movie, who thought, because his first movie was such a hit, he could do whatever the hell wanted the second go around, but ultimately lacked the discipline or know-how to truly make all the mumbo-jumbo resonate in any kind of meaningful/skillful way. It was like Peele had the kernel of an idea, and then Universal held a gun to his head to write something on the fly, in order to get it in theaters as fast as humanly possible. This was like the first draft of something that needed another year of development, where someone who wasn't riding the hype train at maximum speed would have otherwise had the convenience of being able to take a step back and rethink certain elements before delivering this thing to the station.
I really do like Jordan Peele, but I'm afraid that Get Out's immense success on his first at bat might ultimately prove to be more of a curse than anything else. This "symbolism" in this movie is like something a pothead in college came up with one night, and then tried like hell to build a movie around. So many half-baked ideas felt like they were from three different movies, and that exposition dump in the third act was one of the worst I've ever heard. The "lore" of this movie is really, really dumb, and either not at all thought out, or needed to be explored in a completely different way, maybe even in a completely different movie, because it just hardly makes any sense at all.
That said, I actually really enjoyed the second act. The first act was a little too long, and kind of vanilla, but once the mirror family showed up, and the cabin-in-the-woods element really kicked in, I was pretty into it. It was a fun horror/slasher thriller, all the way up until that third act, which I thought was just utter nonsense. Get Out worked because it was primarily text with subtext. Us didn't work (for me) because it was far more subtext than text; so much of which felt so stitched together and random. And yes, I've read a few articles on the movie now that explain everything - it's basically what I thought - but man, ultimately, I just don't care. About any of it.
If I didn't know any better, I would say this was absolutely the second movie from a director who made a pretty good, but waaaaay overhyped first movie, who thought, because his first movie was such a hit, he could do whatever the hell wanted the second go around, but ultimately lacked the discipline or know-how to truly make all the mumbo-jumbo resonate in any kind of meaningful/skillful way. It was like Peele had the kernel of an idea, and then Universal held a gun to his head to write something on the fly, in order to get it in theaters as fast as humanly possible. This was like the first draft of something that needed another year of development, where someone who wasn't riding the hype train at maximum speed would have otherwise had the convenience of being able to take a step back and rethink certain elements before delivering this thing to the station.
I really do like Jordan Peele, but I'm afraid that Get Out's immense success on his first at bat might ultimately prove to be more of a curse than anything else. This "symbolism" in this movie is like something a pothead in college came up with one night, and then tried like hell to build a movie around. So many half-baked ideas felt like they were from three different movies, and that exposition dump in the third act was one of the worst I've ever heard. The "lore" of this movie is really, really dumb, and either not at all thought out, or needed to be explored in a completely different way, maybe even in a completely different movie, because it just hardly makes any sense at all.
That said, I actually really enjoyed the second act. The first act was a little too long, and kind of vanilla, but once the mirror family showed up, and the cabin-in-the-woods element really kicked in, I was pretty into it. It was a fun horror/slasher thriller, all the way up until that third act, which I thought was just utter nonsense. Get Out worked because it was primarily text with subtext. Us didn't work (for me) because it was far more subtext than text; so much of which felt so stitched together and random. And yes, I've read a few articles on the movie now that explain everything - it's basically what I thought - but man, ultimately, I just don't care. About any of it.
