The time was right for Jordan Peele to become the next M. Night Shyamalan, but first a word about a moment in the trailer piqued my interest. The only black horse trainers in Hollywood, Otis “OJ” Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and his estranged sister Emerald (Keke Palmer), are the descendants of C. Martin, the driver seated atop The Horse in Motion, Eadweard Muybridge’s series of 12 sequential photographs that led to the birth of cinema. Rather than using this arcane nugget of film history to kick off a sly commentary on reparations for Black Americans, Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us) sees it as a springboard to a murderously ungrateful chimpanzee sitcom star and alien spaceships that resemble wide-brimmed fedoras when viewed from the crown of your head. The siblings pay a visit to Fry's Electronics in search of electronic surveillance equipment for their horse farm. If every Fry’s employee were as attentive as Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), the chain would never have gone belly up. Great directors grow and advance from film to film. Peele hasn’t run out of things to say as proven by his stuffing 20 pounds worth of ideas into a 5 pound turkey. The true horror is that for the first time, his effects budget far exceeded his vision. (2022) — Scott Marks
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