US

Lupita Nyong’o     Winston Duke     Shahadi Wright Joseph    Evan Alex              

Elisabeth Moss     Tim Heidecker 

     I’m not a horror movie fan (my reality base usually takes me out of the drama), but Us was successful in keeping me engaged—mostly.  Tense moments are right in the beginning when Adelaide (Nyong’o) as a child wanders off at an amusement park and goes into a hall of mirrors.  She is curious and exploring until…she comes to a figure who looks just like her.  She runs out as fast as she can to find her parents, who are beside themselves with worry.  Her trauma is framed as PTSD, and she overhears her parents discussing her with others we don’t know, one of whom suggests she needs to turn to the arts to help her out of the trauma.  And indeed, she becomes a ballet dancer.  Much of the sense of doom here and later on in the film is provided by composer Michael Abels (who also scored Get Out by the same director), whose music will be a profound influence on the way you experience the film.

     Years pass, and Adelaide is now married to Gabe (Duke) and they have a daughter Zora (Joseph) and son Jason (Alex).  Gabe is fun loving and seems always to be trying to bring Adelaide along on whatever venture he comes up with.  But she is clearly uptight and fearful.  When Gabe proposes they go to the beach house (which is near the amusement park she visited as a child) with their friends, the Tylers (Moss, Heidecker), who will be nearby, she is equivocal about it, but eventually gives in.

     They get to the beach, but when they meet their friends, the Tylers, it’s clear that Gabe feels inferior to Mr. Tyler in his house/car/yacht.  And Adelaide doesn’t relate to Mrs. Tyler, who seems oblivious to Adelaide’s reticence, and barrels on with conversations that hold no interest to Adelaide.  Adelaide’s whole attention is concentrated on her children, especially Jason, who—unbeknownst to Adelaide encounters the same house that Adelaide visited years ago.

     Everything is fine until the family goes home to the beach house, when suddenly they see replicas of themselves standing on their front walk.  At first, they don’t realize the four figures look exactly like themselves, and Gabe, doing the father-protection thing, goes out to reason with the intruders.  They don’t respond in the way he expects, so he grabs a baseball bat to go out and confront them again.

     Now, from here, you will witness a stream of horrors that will scare you, leave you perplexed, and exasperate you.  At one point, we see someone holding a sign that says Jeremiah 11:11 (which is:  Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.” “Is this a prophetic statement?”, you ask yourself.

     Unfortunately, toward the end, the story drags and takes you out of heightened alert. Jordan Peele is a master at revving up the suspense and evoking all kinds of associations in the viewer, and most of the time he does that here.  But somehow, towards the end, his message doesn’t come through. 

     Symbolism is strong throughout, but its meaning is not always clear:  What do “hands across America” (Reagan era) and “It’s our time now” symbolize? Who do the doppelgangers represent?  It is possible to relish the film without bothering to deal with this aspect, however.

A thriller with symbolism for the viewer to figure out.

Grade:  B+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS: THE FIRST EPIC MOVIE

Voices of:  Jordan Peele   Kevin Hart   Thomas Middleditch   Nick Kroll   Ed Helmsl   Kristen Schaal

     The setting of this animation of absolutely no value is grade school with a mean principal, Mr. Krupp (Helms) who has it in for two student cartoonists, George (Hart) and Harold (Middleditch), pranksters who constantly thwart Krupp’s efforts.  Of course, he is shown as being just as humorless and bad as the two pranksters are “funny.”  Funny is in quotes because the humor always has a scatological reference.  Let me list the words—you’ll be amazed that they could get this many into an 84-minute production:  Underpants (of course), toilet, toilet plunger, toilet paper, Uranus, peeing, farting, pooping, and diarrhea.  There’s even a Professor Poopypants (Kroll) and a farting symphony.  Not only is the principal disparaged in this film; so are school, science, and good students. 

     The basic premise of the plot is that mean Mr. Krupp threatens to put George and Harold into separate classrooms, which they’re convinced will destroy their friendship forever.  In desperation, they snoop around his office and find some of their things, which Mr. Krupp had confiscated, like a “hypnosis ring.”  With it, they’re able to put him in a trance, which transforms him by removing his clothes and putting him into underpants and a red cape.  An unanticipated side effect is that he thinks he’s a superhero and they start calling him “Captain Underpants.”  In this role he’s seen as partly a dumb fool and partly more heroic than he is in his natural state.  Anytime he starts transforming back into the principal, the two boys simply snap their fingers and sing “Tra-la-la”, and he’s in his underpants and cape again.

     Mixed into the plot is a mad scientist (Kroll) with a German accent and a hairdo that looks like a wild Einstein who gets hired to teach science.  He is Professor Poopypants, with fantasies of revenge for being imprisoned, and one of his efforts is to wipe out all laughter in the world.  This will clearly impede George’s and Harold’s comic book business, so they team up with Captain Underpants to try to destroy Poopypants.

      The ending is predictable.

     This film will appeal to five year-olds who are still in the giggly potty humor phase, but it gets very tiresome for other ages—particularly those who are mature—and it is devoid of any helpful, positive qualities for children.

This is for those who still think potty jokes are funny.

Grade:  F                                   By Donna R. Copeland

GET OUT

Allison Williams     Daniel Kaluua     Bradford Whitford     Catherine Keener     Caleb Landry Jones

      Get Out is a freak-out not long after the film begins.  It starts cozy enough with two young people in love, Chris (Kaluuya) and Rose (Williams).  She’s about to introduce him to her family, which creates a hint of anxiety in him because he’s black and she’s white.  “No problem”, she says; she hasn’t told them, but they’re liberal parents (“My father would have voted for Obama the third time”) and will be accepting.  Her father is a neurosurgeon and her mother a psychiatrist. 

      They arrive at her parents’ home, a beautiful mansion with forested acreage—no other home in sight.  Dean (Whitford) and Missy (Keener) greet them warmly, though a bit oddly.  Chris gets just a twinge of unease, but this is heightened when the brother Jeremy (Jones) arrives and clearly challenges Chris with racial undertones. 

      As the weekend proceeds, numerous meetings and happenstances occur, such as Chris meeting “the help”, two black people, one a groundskeeper and the other a housekeeper; a large traditionally hosted party, with wealthy guests who see Chris and immediately mention a black person they know (example:  A golfer says, “I know Tiger!”); and, significantly, an older woman with a much younger, vacant-eyed black escort who, at times, resembles a performing monkey.  Horrified, Chris recognizes him as someone who went missing recently in his hometown.

      What follows is truly horrific, and will astonish you, repel you, and actually scare you (not something that happens to me much in horror films).  Chris is caught in a web he could not have possibly imagined from his earlier blissful days with Rose.  Who are these people and what are they about?

     For his debut directorial feature, Jordan Peele, can be proud.  He has written a real thriller that is exciting and thrilling, but importantly has socio-cultural elements that make us pause and think.  It’s a window through which we see how white people try to befriend black people, while demonstrating underlying prejudices in the process.  The hoot at the end is that Peele turns the tables by showing white people lusting after “black” (stereotypical) characteristics.

      I always love seeing Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford playing their characters so true and entertaining, and they’ve done it once again here.  They have talent for giving a veneer of wealth, fine breeding and cordiality overlaying dark and mysterious aims.  Daniel Kaluuya carries the weight of the suspenseful story, and does it well, showing the transition from affability, good nature, and curiosity, to desperation.  Allison Williams shows her talent in portraying an upper class young woman who appears to have crossed the racial boundaries. 

      I did have a problem with this film.  Hypnosis is a legitimate, often extremely effective treatment but with mythologies surrounding it.  Get Out exploits these in the interest of enhancing horror, and while that is clearly effective, it perpetuates fears about hypnosis that are ungrounded.  I wish Jordan Peele had figured out another clever way to manipulate the characters in his film.

A thriller that addresses racial sensitivities.  Be prepared to see a genuine horror unfold.

Grade:  B+                                    By Donna R. Copeland