Dir - M. Night Shyamalan
Overall: MEH
Another botched effort from the perpetually flawed filmography of M. Night Shyamalan, Glass is the sequel to both Unbreakable and Split. Coming nineteen years after the former and three after the latter, it is hardly the conventional way to go about establishing a cinematic universe and wrapping up a trilogy. Yet Shyamalan did have a lot of embarrassing to utterly terrible movies to make in the meantime. Glass is akin to Unbreakable far more than it is Split in tone as there is not really a single horror-esque moment to be found here. That is not the problem though. Once again, M. Night cannot quite juggle his good ideas and in the process throws some very unnecessary and sloppy ones in instead. No movies of his are void of plot holes and the fact that there are more than even usual for him here gets quite distracting. The circumstances that bring James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, and Samuel L. Jackson together in the very same building with only the flimsiest of security measures that are easily thwarted, one of the most forced twists in any of Shyamalan's movies, and arguably the very most lackluster ending make for a highly unsatisfactory result. McAvoy is positively brilliant once again as a lunatic with too many multi-personalities to count and as always, Shyamalan proves himself a way better director than writer with a multitude of well structured, stylistic shots. Still, Glass is a disappointment in every other way.
Dir - Jordan Peele
Overall: MEH
There is a frequently used saying regarding horror movies in particular that "less is more". Though it is a simplification of course to suggest that explaining as little as possible automatically means that the movie is going be better, but there are times when you can overstuff your film with exposition, twists, and themes on top of themes to the point where the weight of it all completely collapses upon itself. With Us, that is precisely what happens. There are few filmmakers out there embracing the horror film more than Jordan Peele. Coming out of being a Mad TV writer and performer, (nobody's perfect), to the highly successful and hilarious Key and Peele, to taking a hefty enough gamble with his directorial debut Get Out, Peele pleasantly surprised many. While Get Out was also flawed and similarly wracked up the plot holes, Us reeks of overcompensating while desperately trying to both appeal to whoever it can and challenge whoever it can at the same time. Because Us was sufficiently funded and Get Out was such a roaring success, Peele is unfortunately stuck in this position where either studio heads or he himself feels he cannot be too ambiguous as to alienate his whole audience so instead, he goes the complete opposite route and drowns his movie with ideas that have no payoff. Throw in some trendy, terrible details like boo scares and supernaturally strong, agile bad guys standing still and tilting their heads and there is way too much here to aggravate and undue it. A movie, (no matter what genre), does not get by on its clever premise, good performances, and a few well done scenes. Not when the filmmakers cannot stop throwing shit in there with no possible hope of it adding up. Taken as a whole which is only fair, Us is a regrettable mess.
Dir - Joe Berlinger
Overall: MEH
Making a serial killer biopic has to be one of the most monumentally difficult cinematic tasks there is. So the conflicting nature of Joe Berlinger's Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is troubled in more ways than one. The positives to point out are in the structure of the film, which shows almost none of the deplorable acts of Ted Bundy and instead looks at the most notorious amongst too many of America's serial killers primarily through the eyes of two women; his one time girlfriend and later wife. Giving us a view from just two of the people he manipulated and not focusing on the things a monster like Bundy himself would be most proud of is the admirable way to go to be sure. That being said, the usual biopic problems are numerous. With a case so incredibly infamous as Bundy's and one that carries so much unbelievably tragic weight, taking such eye-ball rollingly dramatic liberties is a bad move. Perhaps this softens the blow a bit and helps the whole ordeal to be more "movie-like" as to dilute the viewer from what really went down. Using embarrassingly on the nose pop music cues, re-ordering real life events, and simply making up others might take the edge off, but it does so in an annoying and somewhat disrespecting way. A movie about Ted Bundy simply should not be entertaining is the long-short of it, but then why watch it if that is the case? Also, Zac Efron forgoes most of Bundy's actual mannerisms, ditches the slight-southern accent, and conveys hardly any of the sociopath's smirking narcissism and is more just giving a straight, competent performance here. It is difficult to surmise what the movie could have done "better", but it gets probably a C+ to a B for effort at least.
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