Firstly, I don't see 'color'. I question this 'color' talk when I hear it as I grew up watching the Cosby Show along with millions of others making it a top series of the day. I hear Jordan Peele's talk about adding color representation to the big screen and that's to be celebrated, but for me a movie is about the movie. A good rating is easy, a movie just has to entertain, it's plot, it's editing, photography and acting, anyone of those being exceptional is enough to draw me in. I liked the then standing 100 score on rotten tomatoes, that and Peele's talk show circuit was enough to sign me up. I was genuinely excited to see this on the big screen, maybe that anticipation contributed to my disappointment in the form of a lunch bag let down. I wanted it to keep me on the edge of my seat, it didn't. I wanted to discover some hidden complex connected plot line and frankly it wasn't present. What little surprise there was has been done before. I liked the beginning, the slightly obvious homage to the time. Like everyone else there were moments of 'oh yeah, I remember that...','..the hands across America thing', the subtle uses of that age appropriate typefaces, the primitive lower thirds weren't lost on the audience either. The pace starts off slow and drops disconnected clues along the way that tease the ending prematurely. Without spoiling it, the ending isn't all that original. We've seen bits of this storyline before, Body Snatchers, The Strangers Prey at Night, Journey to the far side of the sun, all served up in varying degrees in this Peele's second theatrical release. I read somewhere that he was displaying the divide in the US, that the hands across America is used to show American unity, except they are all in red which confusingly blurs the films villainy against the films humanity, who is who, why is this presented somewhat disconnected from the plot. Are we supposed to embrace that the cause and a solution to the American existential crisis resides within us individually? I don't see it. A duality of causation per individual does not exist in reality, maybe he is trying to encourage a population to empathetically reach across the aisle, to understand another's view to help bring some closure at middle ground. If he is, it's going to be clearly lost on the same demographic that celebrates Trumps tariff revenues as a win when that money isn't coming from the wallet of overseas companies but the wallets of middle America who now pay more for their preferred goods and services. Other countries manufacturers don't suck up the tariff, it gets added on to the landed continental US price and its North Americans that pay that bill, this is basic stuff. A crowd that isn't savvy enough to recognized their diminished purchasing power, isn't likely going to meet anyone halfway, anywhere. If we leave politics and divisiveness aside, is this a good movie? It's well shot, the colorization is decent, the doppelgänger acting is impressive and the concept is decent, albeit déjà vu. I think Jordan had some good concept bones and a lot of ideas, I think he rode the success of his Get Out Oscar to get this movie made and in the can but he rushed it. Nothing feels resolved, everything feels like there could be more back story, more flesh put on those bones, it's a hodge podge of decent ideas all strung together in a rush. To give him the benefit of the doubt, he had all sorts of good ideas that he didn't spend enough time on. To be a harsh critic it just didn't gel, it felt sophomoric under a large production budget. It's not worth some deeper discussion, I don't agree with it being prophetic, personally, (which is all any critiique is, a personal opinion) I came away disappointed and feeling a bit ripped off. Sorry Jordan, maybe next time.
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