Us is Academy Award winner Jordan Peele's second feature film after his debut, Get Out.
Even though I wasn't as big of a fan of Get Out as everyone else, I thought it was good and an interesting new way of approaching horror (at least from my experience). And with Us his giving us that again… although I'm not sure how much I liked it.
From a performance standpoint, the main characters are great. Lupita Nyong'o was really good, the obvious parallel would be Toni Collete in Hereditary last year. Collete didn't receive any award recognition (despite giving the best female performance of the year), but Nyong'o might, since the Academy likes Jordan Peele. The two kids were also very strong (especially the girl). My favourite character in the movie though, was Winston Duke as the dad. He was funny at the right points, intense at the right points. He nailed it and I enjoyed watching him on screen.
Peele obviously wanted to make a more ambitious movie than Get Out and I respect that. I like it, when directors aren't afraid to take risks. But this time it didn't quite work for me. He sets up interesting things at the start and even throughout the second act, I was interested in seeing how it was going to end. But then at the end there are some twists that kind of ruined it for me. Also at the very last twist felt tacked on. I would much prefer, if Peele left that aspect of the movie more ambiguous. The movie has a lot of symbolism, but it all felt scrambled together without much care.
Most of the technical aspects were very well done. I like the cinematography, especially. The music was sometimes good, sometimes a bit distracting. I appreciate, that there were no jumpscares.
My opinion might be affected by the fact, that I'm a white man from Europe and many people seem to love it. That's totally OK and more power to them. I hope this movie makes money, so that Peele can go on make ambitious movies, that are different.
Us is definitely a movie with creepy ideas, imagery and some scary scenes. It will make you think, even if you are not on board with it. I wish the execution of some of those ideas was better.