| Universal Pictures | Release Date: March 22, 2019 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
52
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Mar 21, 2019
His choice of shots is remarkable, from the mirror house to an institutional hallway chase that goes on forever, to static shots of possible entry points that double down on the suspense. Us is a well shot, artfully chilling movie, one awash in mood but which doesn’t fail to deliver the story.
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The TelegraphMar 21, 2019
It is unquestionably Nyong’o’s film, and the 12 Years a Slave actress gives a nerve-flaying double performance. As Adelaide, every facial expression seems to embody an emotion in its purest, uncut form, while her evil double has a twisting, buckling physicality that comes close to avant-garde butoh dance.
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RogerEbert.comMar 9, 2019
Like “The Shining,” there are a number of different ways to interpret Jordan Peele’s excellent new horror movie, Us. Every image seems to be a clue for what’s about to happen or a stand-in for something outside the main story of a family in danger. Peele’s film, which he directed, wrote and produced, will likely reward audiences on multiple viewings, each visit revealing a new secret, showing you something you missed before in a new light.
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IndieWireMar 8, 2019
Mar 20, 2019
Mar 9, 2019
Once again, the director draws upon the sketch-comedy gifts he honed on “Key & Peele” to achieve an artful, ruthless balance of horror and hilarity. Us is a tour de force of comic tension and visceral release, a movie that weaponizes our chuckles against us and reminds us that laughing, screaming and thinking are not mutually exclusive pleasures.
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Mar 9, 2019
Us is a very, very strange film. But that’s OK because it wouldn’t be a Jordan Peele joint if there wasn’t a little risk involved. Peele has proven that he’s not a one-hit-wonder with this truly terrifying, poignant look at one American family that goes through hell at the hands of maniacal doppelgangers.
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Mar 9, 2019
Us is a bit predictable and contains a few jumbled auditory edits. However, these small missteps are in the service of an ambitious story that has a lot to say about what divides us as humans and how those divisions hurt everyone. Peele’s direction contains a tight grasp on horror and comedy, balancing both perfectly. His game cast shines brightly in their dual roles, and the ending makes the whole endeavor well worth your time.
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Mar 21, 2019
Working with cinematographer Mike Gioulakis, editor Nicholas Monsour, and composer Michael Abels, Peele has once again constructed a movie experience that functions first and foremost on the level of sheer terror. From the drops of doom on the soundtrack to a POV camera that frequently puts us face to face with horror, Us turns identity politics into the stuff of nightmares.
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Mar 20, 2019
Mar 9, 2019
Peele directs Us with a masterful collection of horror-movie tricks — jump scares that actually pay off, a cat-and-mouse game in an isolated place filled with bright lights and deep pools of impenetrable shadow, a throat-closing Michael Abels score full of intense drumming and choral chanting that elevates the action to operatic levels of drama. But his greatest asset is the performances, which turn an already creepy premise into something endlessly inhuman and unnerving.
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Mar 21, 2019
Peele’s visual audacity is at times breathtaking, and always serves a greater purpose. There is a beautiful overhead shot of the family walking along the beach, carrying their supplies, casting long shadows. There’s no way to know in the moment you’re admiring this that it carries meaning that informs the rest of the film. That’s just terrific filmmaking.
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Mar 14, 2019
Us is full of genuine scares, award-worthy performances (Tim Heidecker does something that had me howling), and a chilling score (don’t worry, there’s an “I Got 5 on It” reprise), but as the film progresses, the story gets a little messy. It’s one of those movies where you walk out after wondering whether you missed something, or if the script needed an extra scene or five percent more exposition.
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Mar 8, 2019
Mar 20, 2019
Is it fair to say that Jordan Peele is this generation’s John Carpenter? With his sly grasp of the intersection of popcorn thrills and political allegory, it’s a reasonable comparison. After he provided an Oscar-worthy analysis of race relations in "Get Out," now America’s id is probed in Us.
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Mar 20, 2019
In Us, Peele has produced a terrifying artifact: a sinister ballet of doppelgangers and inversions that makes flesh the unseen underbelly lurking beneath every sunny American dream and behind every contented nuclear family. It’s a scissor-sharp rebuke to anyone who’s ever held hands and sang “Kumbaya.”
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The PlaylistMar 9, 2019
As a sleekly-directed, crowd-pleasing horror film, it’s efficient, terrifyingly thrilling and a lot of fun. It’s the kind of movie that will be discussed and debated for decades to come, and perhaps thirty years from now, as things continue to descend into utter chaos, Us will be looked back in retrospect as prophetic. As it stands now, it’s fascinating, a little maddening, and entertaining.
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Mar 16, 2019
As a horror buff, I hate to admit it, but Peele’s attachment to creaky genre tropes is already starting to hold him back. The good news is that he’s more than halfway to creating his own syntax, his own means for illuminating the sunken places of the world. I have a feeling there will be miraculous excavations to come.
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Mar 9, 2019
Mar 9, 2019
Us is an impressive and astonishingly hair-triggered sophomore feature squarely positioned to decimate genre audiences. It’s purposefully vague, but jam-packed with more memorable genre imagery and inquisitive discussion starters than most braindead by-the-book cinematic offerings beholden to formulaic blueprints.
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Mar 8, 2019
Terrifying...The less you know going in — and the less energy you spend thinking about it after the fact — the better the movie works, trading on some uncanny combination of Peele’s imagination and our own to suggest a horror infinitely larger and more insidious than the film is capable of representing.
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The Film StageMar 21, 2019
When the narrative value begins to collapse, all that’s left is the reptilian reaction to and appreciation of the set-piece moments. Luckily, in the case of Us, those moments pay off greatly. It’s just a shame that, given all this talent and ambition, it can’t all add up to more than the sum of its parts.
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Mar 21, 2019
Mar 20, 2019
Both simplistic and overcomplicated, Us depends on some of horror’s most hackneyed cliches and gaps in logic — by now, shouldn’t all movie characters know never to go back into the house and to always stay together? — as well as a few windy speeches explaining why bizarre things keep happening. The viewer begins to wish that Peele had given his script one more pass, either to pare it down or beef it up.
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Mar 18, 2019
With the ambitious home-invasion horror chiller Us, Peele goes even deeper into the conflicted territory of class and race and privilege; he also ponders the traits that make us most human. But this time, he’s got so many ideas he can barely corral them, let alone connect them. He overthinks himself into a corner, and we’re stuck there with him.
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Mar 15, 2019
Mar 20, 2019
It pains me to say this. I spent a good deal of Us straining to like it, to get on its slightly preening wavelength, to be nourished by its heady stew of tropes. I couldn’t get there, though. As loaded up on stuff as Us is, there’s not enough to grab onto; it’s an alienating idea piece that lumbers away just as it’s about to reveal its true nature.
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