Ok, so I recently saw the movie Us, written and directed by Jordan Peel, who also recently made the movie "Get Out!", over my birthday, and this is just a shot at a broad movie review. Spoilers Ahead... Bracing yourself yet...? Ok, good. So, the movie Us basically starts as a standard "intruder/home invasion" horror movie, essentially ripping off the Purge series. An affluent family is hanging out over the weekend at their home with some friends and quickly things go off the rails for them. The mother, Addy, has vivid memories of a bizarre incident as a child where she found an underground tunnel beneath a fun house at a local fair and met what appeared to be her "evil reflection". She apparently escapes the attack by her reflection unharmed, but was traumatized so much she couldn't speak for years, eventually learning to help herself and get over her problems through dancing and becoming a young ballerina. But now that same evil reflection, along with her own "family" of duplicates, who resemble Addy's own family, appear to take vengeance on her. These duplicates aren't like normal humans. They're vicious, murderous, almost completely mindless and bestial except for Addy's reflection which speaks with a bizarre vocal tic that can best be described as a raspy, hissing voice. She basically sounds like Cobra Commander, and she speaks in bizarre parables, and puts forth the idea that these beings, these reflections of normal humans, have been living in secret beneath our feet for generations. They're clones created by a failed government experiment in some attempt to breed a slave caste and then abandoned in underground bunkers, one of which Addy found by chance, and they seem connected to their original templates by some kind of telepathic link. Whatever we do or think or say, they do too, and it seems then that they're aware of our every movement and thought. Addy watches helplessly as her friends and family are attacked, some killed, by these monsters and while she and her family survive her best friend and said friend's entire family is executed by these clones. More over it is revealed in a shocking twist the clones have appeared across the country, and slaughtered millions, leaving the entire nation in ruins. And for some reason they all are standing in a chain, holding hands, stretching from sea to sea...apparently mimicking paper doll cutouts. By the end, it's shown that basically the entire nation has fallen to the clones, and Addy and her family are driving off into a post-apocalypse, with the tv showing other nations are experiencing similar events. Apparently this was a global revolt by these cloned slaves, and now humankind is teetering on the brink of annihilation. And as if that weren't enough, in a shocking twist it's revealed that the "reflection" of Addy, who was leading this clone uprising, was actually the REAL Addy and that her clone had replaced her decades ago as a child and stolen her life. Thus, the REAL Addy was leading the rebellion, and the reason she was the only clone who could speak was because she was the only real human among them, turning them into a legion or army to take revenge against humanity for abandoning her. The Addy we saw all this time had been a clone who escaped, and learned to live among humans, apparently forgetting most of her past as a mindless clone and convincing herself she was a human...or it's implied being brainwashed into thinking she was a human by the real Addy's parents, who may or may not have been aware she was a clone all along. Sounds exciting right, a "Purge"-clone that transformed into a zombie apocalypse movie and ends with the terrifying idea humanity will be exterminated by the mindless, bestial clones we created...sounds good right? Well, kinda... It's a solid A movie, no question, very exciting and very innovative in how this story is portrayed. To the point that, while the trailers accidentally give away the "she's a clone all along" twist I was genuinely shocked at some of the ways the movie went. I never thought it would end as dark as it did, basically saying mankind is doomed and a clone horde will supplant us. He also uses humor in a very bizarre, unsettling way that both makes you laugh and adds to the tension, like some kind of surreal inkblot that can be interpreted various ways--are these people idiots to be sitting around going through Medea comedy routines in a zombie apocalypse? Are they scared and trying to deal with the tension? Hell maybe she's born with it! The problem with Us is the same problem, ironically, with Peel's other work, 2017's Get Out!, and that is his tendency to put his political beliefs on display in such a blatant fashion that it can only be described as out and out propaganda. If you've never seen Get Out! the basic premise is that White people are secretly using Blacks as slaves via brainwashing, overwriting and replacing our memories with their own to make us into Conservative drones, so any Blacks who you see who aren't Liberals are ACTUALLY just Stepford Wife-like automatons. And yes that is literally what Get Out! proposes, that all black Conservatives are secretly mind-controlled slaves. Us is slightly less...insane...but still just as overtly political. Around the time one of the clones, specifically the Addy clone, when asked what they are, and then smiles and says "We. Are. America!" to be honest I rolled my eyes so hard I almost went blind. Basically, when you peel (pun intended) Jordan Peel's plot back and look at the political ideology he's writing from it becomes painfully obvious what his "backstory" was here: These clones are all mindless, bestial creatures, barely human even, who wear red and all enjoy conformity. They live in the ruined left-overs of coal mines and obey a singular leader. All they care about is material possessions and they were held at bay for years, until a new leader came along to unify them, one who had once been part of the human race but had reneged on that humanity to become one of the clones. Now with this new leader at their head, they've become an unstoppable army of murderous, brutish thugs, wondering the streets decked out in bright red and killing anyone different then them. See the connections yet...? To oversimplify, Peel is saying that Conservatives are some kind of subhuman monsters who live in coal mines and, once kept in check by the government, now a leader has emerged to unify them and they're soon going to annihilate mankind and leave our nation in ruins. "But James!" I hear you scream, "You're reading too deep into this! It's just a sci-fi/horror movie!" No. No I'm not. He has given interviews and said as much, I read them. His view is literally that anyone who doesn't agree with his political beliefs is a monster, a clone, an imperfect and cheap copy of "Real Humans" (who all vote Democrat) and that if they're not stopped soon they'll consume us all. The entire movie, I should point out, is set in CALIFORNIA and one of the main, key plot elements is how happy and enraptured everyone is, until those evil clones showed up to ruin it all with their "individual thoughts" and "two party system" and all that "free speech" bullshit. More over it literally CANNOT be a coincidence that the entire movie is bedecked with constant reference to religion, exclusively in the hands of CLONES, with the only logical inference being that only a mindless, animalistic monster from some coal mine would believe in God. Obviously. And yes it EXPLICITLY says they came from coal mines. The movie opens on a literal text scroll explaining how there are thousands of miles of coal mines beneath the United States, and most of them? Well, we have no idea what dwells in them...I mean, other than those filthy working class type people who don't go to liberal colleges and make arthouse horror movies. And the fact the clones all wear dirty overalls--i.e they're all dirty, unwashed working class types from who need to learn to code--helps to make the reference even more clear. Coupled with the borderline comedic line of "We. Are. America!" when asked what they were, and the only logical assessment one can draw is that Mr. Peel apparently views the rural worker, filthy in their overalls and clinging to their outdated faith in Jesus, as some kind of inhuman monster mankind must either destroy or be consumed by. And any human who would DARE to push their "agenda" and lower themselves to being among the working class filth is no better than these feral, monstrous things...these...these AMERICANS! (yuck! I can barely say it without vomiting!) Now for the sake of those with cognitive dissonance let me reiterate... Us is not, repeat NOT, a bad movie. It's a good movie, well worth your time and money, with some genuine scares and a unique sense of humor. However, be forewarned that there are Nazi anti-semite propaganda films that don't hit you over the head as much with their political leanings. We get it Jordan Peel, you hate White people, you hate America, and you really REALLY got stiff when Obama was elected. I'm sorry your princess lost her election back in 2016. Now try making a movie that ISN'T about evil White people...just once. Just try it for me.
