Ready Player One

"Come with me / And you'll be / In a world of pure imagination". So goes Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory's Pure Imagination, a version of which scored the first trailers for Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One and promised an imagination fuelled adventure in the process – a promise only reinforced by main character Wade Watts' description of The Oasis (a virtual reality where most of the population of Earth spend the bulk of their time in 2045) as a world where "the limits of reality are your own imagination". So with that in mind, how is it that Ready Player One has ended up being one of the most deeply unimaginative and creatively bankrupt films I've even seen?

The answer is simple but depressing: it's a film that seems to be operating under the wild misconception that grouping a lot of recognisable things created by other people's imagination under one roof counts as using your own. It doesn't, obviously, and yet it's so busy doing this throughout that it forgets to do much of anything else, meaning that while those looking for a seemingly never ending parade of pop culture references presented to the audience with all the intelligence, elegance and wit as an episode of The Big Bang Theory are in luck, those looking for an engaging story or interesting characters or... well, a real movie, are going to end up feeling more than just a little bored and frustrated with a film that simply doesn't even seem to be trying.

The story, itself little more than an excuse for a handful of visually extravagant but ultimately pretty vapid action sequences, sees various groups searching for an Easter Egg that will give them control over the Oasis following the death of James Halliday, its creator. One of these groups is led by Wade Watts (in-game name Parzival), whose love for the Oasis and its creator is seemingly endless; another is led by Innovative Online Industries CEO Nolan Sorrento, whose only interest in controlling the Oasis comes from how much money could be made through introducing targeted advertisements, pay to win micro-transactions and differently priced membership tiers.

There's a half-hearted critique of capitalism in there that Ready Player One has all but completely chickened out of by the time the credits roll, but beyond that? It's effectively just a version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory updated for a post-Internet world, one in which Willy Wonka is dead, the potential heirs to the throne know they're being tested and John Cadbury is on the tour alongside the children. In fairness it's a fine, simple structure to hang a film around – but the key to unlocking that sentence is that other stuff needs to be hung around it, which ignoring the aforementioned obnoxious pop culture references, Ready Player One entirely fails to do. Instead, we're left with nothing but cookie-cutter characters, embarrassing dialogue, a plot you've seen a million times before, and actions sequences that are both far too visually busy for their own good and impossible to get caught up in thanks to the aforementioned issues with character and story, resulting in a film that left me by and large bored out of my mind.

I mean, where's the sense of wonder that usually accompanies this kind of Steven Spielberg movie? Where's the heart and soul he's known for, the earnest sentimentality that virtually defines his filmography? Other than one short scene towards the end, they're entirely missing, which means that if not for his name in the credits it would be pretty difficult to identify this as being directed by arguably one of the greatest American directors working today. Instead, it's a bland, unartistic and seemingly entirely passionless affair, the kind of film that feels like it should've been released for free on the Internet as part of a viral marketing campaign for a terrible free to play game rather than a huge piece of would-be blockbuster cinema.

And I can almost see some of you who have already watched Ready Player One sitting there, shaking your heads and silently mouthing the words "but I enjoyed it", and you know what? That's fine. The moment to moment filmmaking of Ready Player One is passable at its very worst and actually pretty nifty at its best, by and large lacking the kind of obvious hallmarks that most people use to identify if a film is any good or not. It might seem fairly harmless, but imagine if every big film had the same lack of respect for its audiences intelligence, trying to skate by purely through tickling the stupid part of your brain that gets excited when it sees something it recognises. We'd quickly find ourselves in a completely stagnant cultural landscape, and while that might've made for an slyly subversive subplot in a significantly more interesting and self-aware version of Ready Player One, it's not a future I particularly want to experience. It's the cinematic equivalent of empty calories, filling you up without offering anything of real value, and while that might satisfy in the moment you have to be able to recognise that it's simply not good for you.

And the message behind all this lazy nostalgia bait? It's not intelligence or teamwork or compassion that matters, but how much meaningless trivia you've managed to commit to memory. It's Gatekeeping: The Movie, pandering to the worst kind of "oh, you like Star Wars? Name everyone who worked on the Death Star" nerd in the process, and it's deeply embarrassing to sit there and see that kind of knowledge treated as worthwhile. Fact is, Wade Watts would be an unbearable, boring asshole in real life, and I really don't have much patience for a film that goes out of its way to glorify that kind of person, especially when they already don't need the encouragement.

But it's the shameless, cynical hypocrisy of Ready Player One that rankles the most. Ultimately, what we have here is a film that pays lip service to the power of imagination while refusing to use it's own, a celebration of pop culture that contributes nothing to it, and an ode to the importance of stories that doesn't have anything new to say. Yes, it probably is the best possible version of itself - but at a certain point we have to look beyond its surface level sheen and realise that what it is simply isn't any good. A bad film made well is still a bad film, after all.

Aladdin (2019)

In terms of what you might be expecting, Disney’s live-action adaptation of their own animated take on Aladdin is much more than a diamond in the rough. Against the odds, and certainly expectations, Guy Ritchie and his likeable and talented cast have managed to deliver a cave of wonders which honours the original classic and yet still manages to find enough new angles to make the story feel new again.

Trapped in a cave after being tricked into going by the ambitious Grand Vizier Jafar, Aladdin, played by Mena Massoud, finds himself in possession of an old lamp – and an all-powerful genie with whose help he sets out to win the heart of Princess Jasmine. In the early scenes, it sticks fairly close to the story beats of the original but gradually it reveals that it has more on its mind than just polishing up Aladdin’s rough diamond. In this subtly updated version, not only does the genie get a more cohesive story arc, but so too does Jasmine. Although the original Jasmine was no fragile blossom, there’s more than just sassy feistiness to Naomi Scott’s heroine. Determined and defiant, there’s an agency to Jasmine in this that results in a much richer and more satisfying conclusion to the whole affair.

While director Guy Ritchie remains a puzzling choice, and never seems entirely comfortable with the musical numbers, he brings enough spectacle and vibrant, colourful action to the screen to keep things moving along nicely. The musical numbers themselves are transformed on the big screen, lively and toe-tappingly familiar even when given a fresh coat of hip-hop, courtesy of Will Smith – arguably the film’s biggest gamble if Robin Williams fans are to be believed. So, let’s talk about Will Smith as our Genie. If you’d seen it in the trailers and hoped he'd be rendered better before the film's release... you are in for a disappointing ride. It’s completely overwhelming when Genie comes out of the lamp as you’re examining the disproportionate head with his body but Smith absolutely nails the role – respecting Williams’ footsteps yet unafraid to add a little fancy footwork of his own – creating something wonderful. This is vintage Will Smith like we haven’t seen in years and reminds us, in case we’d forgotten, just why he was such a bankable box office star in his 1990s heyday.

Alas, not every day’s a red letter and as Naomi Scott’s Jasmine rises and Smith lights up the screen, Massoud’s more sensitive and sympathetic Aladdin fades into the background slightly although he’s still fun to watch. Unfortunately, the internet’s ‘Hot Jafar’ turns out to be decidedly tepid and Kenzari just doesn’t have the gravitas or menace to really pull off the role, hampered by a script which doesn’t seem to know how to write its villain and criminally wastes the voice talents of Alan Tudyk as the unnamed and desperately underwritten Iago. It really could have been anyone voicing the parrot and, in some ways, it really could have been anyone directing this. 

Aladdin never once feels like a Guy Ritchie film, but what it does feel like is a polished, family friendly and crowd-pleasing musical fairy tale and, surprisingly, one of Disney’s stronger live-action adaptations to date.

I, Tonya

"Good artists copy; great artists steal". It's a fairly well-known saying that speaks to the way art evolves over time as the innovations of influential artists seep into the work of those who come along later, but it's worth breaking down what exactly the phrase means by "steal". Mimicry or simple replication isn't enough; you have to make something your own in order to steal it, add your own unique spin or use it in a particular way that stamps your name on it, and that means that I, Tonya – a biopic whose style was quite clearly heavily influenced by the work of Martin Scorsese – doesn't qualify as an act of theft. Appropriately then, it also doesn't qualify as great art – merely quite good.

At the very least it's a vast improvement over the pale Scorsese imitation that David O. Russell has been doing for the last few years, thanks in large part to director Craig Gillespie's much firmer grasp of how to make the particulars of this style – such as the fourth-wall breaking narration, or the eclectic soundtrack – work on-screen. But just as important to why I, Tonya works where films like Joy don't is the simple fact that the story of disgraced American figure skater Tonya Harding is actually worth telling and well-suited to this style of film-making, hitting all the required funny, sad and tense beats as it focuses on a number of vibrant, almost larger-than-life characters who you actually want to learn more about and see interact with one another.

And I, Tonya certainly delivers there, making the decision to spend the bulk of its running time not on the incident that Tonya Harding is now mostly well known for (her alleged involvement in the attack on rival figure skater Nancy Kerrigan) but on the relationships that define her as a person. You've got her relationship with her neglectful at best mother, a cold and uncaring figure who pushed her to be a great skater no matter the cost; her relationship to her abusive and at times downright psychotic husband, who I, Tonya posits as the main reason for Harding's eventual downfall; and her relationship to the world of figure skating, the gatekeepers of which never wanted to give a redneck, working class girl a fair shot. It's a good script that knows when to focus on which relationship and gives equal importance to all three, but what really elevates I, Tonya from being an OK Scorsese-lite into a film that's genuinely worth seeing are the truly great performances given by Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney and especially Margot Robbie, who I simply didn't think was capable of this kind of powerhouse performance. Needless to say, her Oscar nomination for Best Actress was incredibly well-earned it was just a shame she was pitted against the phenomenal Frances McDormand who obviously took the win.

But it's also worth keeping in mind that without lead performances this strong, I, Tonya probably would've been all but forgotten about quite quickly. It might be a good Scorsese impression, but it's still just an impression, never living up to that from which it takes so much and at times feeling oddly forced in its execution. Sure, it's entertaining when these character break the fourth wall in order to talk to the audience, or when the actors play older versions of their characters giving interviews, but neither of these quirks appear consistently enough for them to feel like a natural part of this film when they do show up, and there are a few scenes early on that quite badly misjudge if the events happening on screen should be portrayed for comedic effect or not. Funnily enough, I, Tonya's best and most memorable scenes end up being the ones least like the kind of thing you might find in a Scorsese film, Gillespie dropping the film's borrowed aesthetic in order to simply capture a moment, whether it be an extravagant, monumental victory on the ice or a quiet scene that sees Harding break down as she applies her make-up. This is what Gillespie needed more of to truly make I, Tonya his own - not fake clips of fake interviews or era-appropriate needle-drops, but varied emotional moments that genuinely resonate with the audience.

And yet in spite of its easily identifiable shortcomings, I still really enjoyed I, Tonya for what it is – a mostly quite well-directed film telling an interesting story that's bolstered by a handful of performances so good that they'd make it worth seeing even if the rest of the film was outright bad, which it isn't. Yes, it's a touch overly derivative and at times stumbles in its attempts to replicate the films that it's quite obviously influenced by, but it's also still a really entertaining couple of hours that I can't see many people walking away from disappointed.

Always Be My Maybe

Written by Park, Wong, and Michael Golamco, and directed by Fresh Off the Boat creator Nahnatchka Khan, Always Be My Maybe is of a class with Set It Up and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before in that it’s charming and, for the most part, middle of the road. The story of childhood sweethearts given the chance to reconnect after drifting apart hits every beat it needs to.

Ali Wong stars as culinary superstar Sasha Tran, who puts her glitzy Los Angeles lifestyle on pause to return to her native Bay Area to open up a new restaurant. But while on this three-month excursion, a temporary detour ahead of her impending nuptials (to Daniel Dae Kim as her pretentious fiancé), she bumps into Marcus, played by Randall Park, her childhood bestie who was also the guy she lost her virginity to in the back of his Corolla. Wong and Park also co-wrote the script with Michael Golamco. To Sasha’s surprise, Marcus is still driving the same car, living in his dad’s house, and playing in coffee shops with his high school band. It’s like time has stood still for him almost 20 years later, while Sasha’s life has accelerated. But it’s all good, because even though the two have significant others (Marcus has latched on to a hippie, spam-loving girlfriend) and couldn’t be more different now, you just know that by the end of this film something will bring them together. True to that same rom-com film formula, though, other people get in the way at first, even after Sasha’s groom-to-be predictably bails on her. Enter one very sexy Keanu Reeves. Shout out to Rich Delia’s impeccable casting, which makes this appearance perfect.

Since the release of Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians, the question that’s loomed over the media landscape has been just how the film industry will proceed when it comes to tackling issues of representation. Every aspect of Always Be My Maybe that stews in the realm of mediocrity is given a little boost by points of cultural specificity. For instance, one of the causes of tension between Marcus and Sasha is his disdain for the haute cuisine-style food she makes, citing it as a way of making Asian food trendy for white people instead of actually making good Asian food. The two leads’ relationships with their parents also not only extend beyond stereotypes of tiger mums and the model minority myth, but dig — on a shallow level — into the nuances of how expectations of what is owed and expected can change between first- and second-generation parents and children. As small a detail as it may seem, it’s still extremely novel to see a mainstream film acknowledge that Asian-American culture isn’t as monolithic as it always seems to be portrayed. It’s the kind of thing that sets Always Be My Maybe apart from its otherwise formulaic plotting, with a little additional help from the all-around terrific cast.

If you look underneath the themes of Asian American culture and romance you’ll find messages of success (specifically questions around what really makes one successful) and what’s really important in life. This is a film that may force you to think about your life as viewers may see a lot of themselves in either the characters of Sasha or Marcus. Always Be My Maybe is entertaining from start to finish and is one of the better romantic comedies I’ve seen in recent years. It wouldn’t be a romantic comedy without a feel good ending, but this one has a bit of an extra sentimental twist that may have you reaching for the nearest tissue box. Overall, it is a barrier-breaking piece of work that will hopefully mean more Asian American stories being told on TV and in film. It will also be interesting to see what’s next for Ali Wong and Randall Park as the two showed they have what it takes to write, produce and star in high quality productions that resonate with diverse audiences.

The Secret Life of Pets

Illumination Entertainment's first film, Despicable Me, may have instantly marked them as a company to keep an eye on, but The Secret Life of Pets is just another film from them that indicates their early success may have been more due to luck than judgement. Gone is all the charm and originality that made Despicable Me what it is, instead replaced by a series of barely connected scenes that add up to nothing more than a significantly less effective version of Toy Story.

We follow Max, a dog living a cushy life in New York with his owner, as he tries to deal with the addition of a new dog, Duke. Naturally they don't get on, and it isn't long before the escalating battle between them results in both of them getting lost in the middle of New York city. Imagine if Buzz Lightyear had the same backstory in Toy Story as Jessie does in Toy Story 2. Now imagine they are both dogs instead. Congratulations, you've seen a better version of The Secret Life of Pets. In everything from basic premise to individual plot points – even down to the personalities of various side characters – The Secret Life of Pets owes a great debt to Toy Story and its sequels, cribbing liberally whenever it gets the chance. Where The Secret Life of Pets and Toy Story differ, however, is that one has a strong idea of the story it's trying to tell and the way its characters will change over the course of the film, whereas the other does nothing but repeatedly introduce new, wacky characters and set up silly situations in a futile attempt to keep the audience entertained.

It's a great example of why "and then" storytelling simply doesn't work. There is no sense of cause and effect between almost anything that happens resulting in a film that feels more like the ramblings of a child describing a particularly nonsensical dream than it does a coherent story. That all important structure is totally absent here, and without it what could have been a somewhat moving (albeit wholly unoriginal) story about a dog finding a new home fails to register on any level, never mind an emotional one. There is no end to the list of truly great animated films that understand how to tell a story, which makes The Secret Life of Pets' inability to do so all the more glaringly obvious. This was released in the same year Zootropolis came out so there is simply no reason why films aimed at kids can't be genuinely good, and insisting that we shouldn't expect as much from either animation as an art form or children as an audience is reductive to both.

There are a few aspects of The Secret Life of Pets I enjoyed – a recurring joke involving the dead comrade of an ex-pet militia made me laugh every time, and the highly stylised Manhattan skyline is nothing short of beautiful – but they are few and far between, and do nothing to make up for a film that clearly needed several pretty major rewrites somewhere in production. None of this stopped The Secret Life of Pets from making a metric shit ton of money of course – this is, after all, an animated film about talking animals that can be advertised using Minions – but I can't see anyone, not even the most pet-loving of people, walking away having genuinely enjoyed the film. And when it comes down to it, that's the only thing that really matters.

Crazy Rich Asians

Given that it's been 25 long years since The Joy Luck Club, the first and only other major Hollywood studio film with a Westernised Asian ensemble and a contemporary setting, anyone who cares about cultural representation was rooting for Crazy Rich Asians. So it's a relief that this high-gloss rom-com — based on the bestselling novel of a Singaporean author, directed by an Asian-American and featuring an all-Asian cast — is such a thoroughly captivating exploration of the rarefied question of whether true love can conquer head-spinning wealth.

Director Jon M. Chu, novelist Kevin Kwan, co-screenwriters Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim, and the appealing cast make the story culturally specific yet eminently relatable. It's a rocky romance dripping in the kind of extravagance most of us can only fantasise about, like a $40 million wedding, for instance. And yet it's viewed from the anchoring perspective of a young woman who comes from nothing and remains true to herself throughout, played with grounded intelligence, backbone and emotional integrity by Fresh Off the Boat's Constance Wu in a lovely performance that gives the film real heart. What will likely sweeten the deal for many voyeuristic audiences is the movie's mouth-watering sampling of guilt-free luxury porn. It's a sybaritic celebration of high-end travel, food, architecture, decor and fashion, but it somehow eschews the vulgarity of conspicuous consumerism. There's flashy excess aplenty, but at the story's core, Trumpian ostentation takes a backseat to proud tradition, family honour, friendship and, most of all, love. The romantic stakes are misinterpreted as gold-digging aspiration only by judgmental snobs, whereas for the couple at the mercy of gossiping meddlers and suspicious relatives, dizzying wealth and all its attendant clubby insularity are an obstacle to be surmounted. The movie is less satirical in tone and as a result it has the necessary depth of feeling to make us root for the beleaguered lovebirds to beat the odds and make a go of it.

Wu plays Rachel Chu, a self-possessed NYU economics professor raised by a working-class single mother, played by Tan Kheng Hua, who emigrated from China when Rachel was a baby. Her dreamboat boyfriend of two years, Nick Young, by Henry Golding, invites her to be his date for the wedding of his best friend Colin, Chris Pang, in Singapore and then spend the summer traveling through Southeast Asia. That news pings through the international social-media grapevine of moneyed Asians at dizzying speed in an amusing montage that represents director Chu's effervescent style at its best. Nick has been reticent about his family's astronomical, old-money wealth, evasively describing their situation as "comfortable." Even when he and the wide-eyed Rachel are ushered into their first-class private suite on the flight from New York, Nick brushes it off as a perk of family business connections. But his desire to explore a relationship with Rachel on equal terms, unimpeded by his elevated social status, soon proves naive, especially once his hyper-vigilant mother Eleanor, Michelle Yeoh, gets wind of it. Even before any actual talk of wedding bells is broached, multiple forces are conspiring to separate Singapore's golden child from the perceived interloper.

The comedy is one part Meet the Parents, two parts Cinderella, with those familiar elements reinvigorated by the fresh setting of upscale Singapore, with its architectural splendours embracing both colonial history and imposing modernist forms. Cinematographer Vanja Cernjul shoots the locations in dynamic widescreen compositions full of bold colours that add to the sense of a 21st century fairy tale. The writers also expand the geographical canvas by taking in Nick's globe-trotting extended family and dropping the principals into exotic locations for the pre-nuptial partying of Colin and his bride-to-be. While that couple's fondness for Nick makes them instantly accepting of Rachel, that is generally not the case. But she has a few strategic allies on her side.

Chief among them is her hilariously unfiltered former New York college friend Peik Lin Goh, played by rapper Awkwafina, the scene-stealer of Ocean's 8, who effortlessly repeats that feat with her irresistible insouciance here. Having returned home to her wacky nouveau riche parents, played to the hilt as shamelessly broad caricatures by Ken Jeong and Koh Chieng Mun, Peik Lin sets Rachel straight on the true scope of Nick's family fortune. She then teams with Oliver (Nico Santos), the flamboyantly gay "poor-relation rainbow sheep" of the Young family, to give Rachel the necessary makeover to pass muster with Eleanor. Even more important is Rachel's first impression on Nick's doting grandmother, or Ah Ma in local parlance, played with beatific serenity and just the right touch of inscrutability by veteran Lisa Lu.

Rachel also gets insider support from Nick's favourite cousin Astrid, Gemma Chan, the essence of poise, beauty and sophistication, whose own difficult experience of marrying beneath her income bracket makes her sympathetic to the outsider's discomfort. While screenwriters Chiarelli and Lim generally have been successful at corralling Kwan's vast panoply of characters into a manageable group, Astrid's troubled marriage to Michael, Pierre Png, gets somewhat shortchanged as a subplot, even if it serves to show the fissures that wealth disparity can create in a relationship. Nevertheless, Chan is a radiant presence who lights up her every scene.

The filmmakers stir occasional bursts of raucous humour into the mix, primarily via Peik Lin's family or Bernard (Jimmy O. Yang), an obnoxious overgrown frat boy who takes charge of Colin's lavish bachelor weekend. But mostly, the comedy is breezy, smart and tethered to issues far more universal than the obscenely rich high-society milieu would suggest. Chu has put together a slick, highly entertaining package. Unsurprisingly for a director who cut his teeth on films including the Step Up sequels and Justin Bieber concert docs, Crazy Rich Asians is energised by infectious use of Brian Tyler's big, bouncy score and some terrific song choices. What makes it so genuinely uplifting, however, is the establishment of the central relationship as a union between partners determined to remain on equal footing, far more concerned with each other's mutual happiness than with all the wealth and luxury that stands between them.

Us

I don't think I'm overstating things when I say that Jordan Peele's Get Out ended up being a pretty big deal by any measure. It made just over $250 million worldwide on a budget of less than $5 million; it received the kind of critical acclaim most directors would kill for; it was nominated for four Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Director), winning Best Original Screenplay; and maybe most importantly, left the kind of immediate cultural impact that can't help but ensure its longevity as both a movie and an important part of pop culture. It is, in short, a great movie - which means that the only real question I had going into Peele's Us was simply this. How can it possibly live up to Get Out?

Sadly, the answer is that it doesn't, but the reason is a little more complicated than "it's just not as good". In many ways, Us is (somewhat appropriately) the mirror image of Get Out - very much still recognisable as a socially satirical horror film, but inverted in a few places to create something that feels radically different to its predecessor. The most obvious of these inversions is that Us is deliberately far less comedic than Get Out, instead focusing its energy on creating the kind of visceral, immediate scares that the more cerebral Get Out lacked - but maybe more important is the films approach to theme, swapping out laser like precision in favour of something less refined but significantly more complex, open ended and further reaching.

The plot itself, however, starts off fairly simple. We follow a fairly average American family of four (the Wilsons) as they holiday in Santa Cruz, which also happens to be where matriarch Adelaide suffered a traumatic experience as a child. That night, four mysterious figures appear at the end of the beach house's driveway, terrorising the family before revealing themselves to be terrifying doppelgängers.

The idea of doppelgängers is one that's been explored countless times in various genres of fiction, but importantly, their inclusion here isn't intended as a shocking twist - instead, it's where Us starts in earnest, kicking off an examination of class and privilege that drives the film throughout. If Get Out was Peele taking umbrage with suspiciously woke liberals, then Us is his rallying cry against capitalist society itself, highlighting the plight of the exploited and the wilful ignorance of those that benefit from that exploitation, all centred around the idea that "there but for the grace of God go I".

I enjoyed puzzling my way through Us, attempting to figure out exactly what Peele was trying to get at, but the themes aren't as well established or fully explored resulting in a film that can't help but feel underdeveloped and lacking much of the clarity and comprehensibility of Peele's debut. For much of the movie, that's not really too big a problem - Us is at its strongest early on, when its main focus seems to be on delivering scares with mere hints towards what it's building towards. It's only towards the end that Peele's ambition ultimately gets the better of him, resulting in a third act that does its best to provide a satisfying conclusion to the plot of the movie while also attempting to tie together all of Us' themes - neither of which it does particularly well.

A good chunk of this finale is delivered in the form of pure exposition from one character to another - worse, it's exposition that ends up over-explaining ultimately meaningless plot details (and in the process raising questions that simply didn't need to be raised) while still leaving the audience mostly in the dark when it comes to what it was all about. Add to that a late in the day "twist" that is so blindly obvious from the opening scene of the movie that by the time it was revealed I'd literally forgotten we weren't meant to know it yet.

A vague sense of dissatisfaction is never what you want to be feeling when you finish watching a film, yet that's exactly what Us left me with in spite of all its earlier strengths. With a better finale Us could've been a genuinely must-see film - instead it's frustratingly flawed, showing so much promise for a decent chunk of its running time thanks to Peele's direction, the subversive themes and a number of fantastic performances (Lupita Nyong'o is fantastic in her dual roles as both leading lady and main antagonist here) before concluding all that with something that just didn't work.

So no, I don't think Us lives up to the expectations set by Get Out. The phrase "difficult second album" can't help but come to mind - it's a less consistent, less certain experience, shaggier around the edges and lacking the kind of images and iconography that helped make Get Out so instantly iconic. But the ideas at play here prove that Peele is still one to watch.