Rent The Mummy on Amazon Video Written by: Jordan Peele Directed by: Jordan Peele Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Rated: R Watch the trailer
Plot
A family's serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgängers appear and begin to terrorize them.
Verdict
While it's a solid horror movie, it's the imminent twist that grabs you. This twist doesn't disappoint. It really changes the perspective on this movie. The implications of the twist are bigger than the movie.
I was waiting for that twist most of the movie which is good and bad. It's definitely worth it, but it made me feel like I was also just biding my time at points. The solid action and horror prevent this from ever approaching boring.
It's the ending that really makes this more than it is, effectively rewriting what the rest of this movie is about. Watch it.
Review
The first scene throws us into a wild ride. It does feel a bit cliche that the daughter just wanders off like that. It's one thing to get distracted, but she goes into a scary fun house. I didn't quite buy that. The scene at first seems to be a send up of horror movies or just for effect, but it does have a purpose though we don't know the connection until later. This drops a couple clues about what might have happened in the fun house.
This throws out a lot of questions. When is this set? What happened to the girl that entered the fun house? How are these clones or doubles created? We then cut to a family going on vacation. This is a crazy trip when doubles of this family of four show up. The doubles don't just look similar, they look identical. "It's us."
These doubles seemingly want to replace the family and we soon learn this isn't an isolated event.
The movie does a great job of being creepy. From the look to the feel, it's effective. Lupita Nyong'o does an amazing job in the double role.
We're told what these doubles are even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. They are indeed some kind of clone. The how about their existence isn't important to this story. There's no way to make sense of the logistics. The movie is here to make a point. It's about what the plot twist means.
This is social commentary packed into a slasher movie.
What's neat is that this movie makes the how completely irrelevant because of what these doubles mean. And what it means has a lot of power.
What is the big twist? Red is Adelaide. In the fun house all those years ago, Red took Adelaide's place. While we see the doubles as nearly feral, living underground, Red was able to live a completely productive life by assuming the real Adelaide's identity. The clones, the tethered, are us. Given the tools to succeed, given they opportunity, they can be successful. That's when this movie dives into classicism.
That's underscored by adult Adelaide (actually Red) who is killing the tethered, her people, to keep what she has. Peele said in an interview, everything has a purpose and meaning. The tethered didn't have the opportunity, and thus couldn't succeed. I'm ascribing a lot to this, but Peele's first film Get Out (read my review) had a lot of meaning imbued. This is similar, tackling social issues through a horror movie. What happens when you have a subset of people that are forced to live underground without resources and opportunities? They don't succeed and this shows with opportunity they could thrive. Suppression leads to violence. Interesting that the real Adelaide led the revolt. She's the only tethered that can talk, but that also is part of getting back what she lost through this revolt.
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