Sigh. Let me get the dumb jokes out of the way so I can get to the review:
- A horror movie named MEN in the year of our lord 2022 – too easy
- I mean the film not the gender HURRRRRRR
- Gotta talk about the low-hanging fruit HURRRRRR
- It gave me all the Rory Kinnear I ever wanted and more – SO MUCH MORE
- I’d scrumble Geoffrey’s apples (well, maybe not his)
There! I had more but I’m tired. Note: I might not be at the top of my game right now with this viewing and review – I might revisit the movie in a few months to see what occurs then.
Anyway -Let me clear something further up – I didn’t hate MEN. I enjoyed it! I will own it when it’s available for purchase! I’ll break down what it did right and wrong in full later, but what you should understand now is that I am NOT hating on MEN.
MEN’s ad campaign set high expectations: there were blurbs like ‘GAME CHANGER!’, high marks from the Onion AV Club and other respectable review sources. I was expecting the film to do for discussions about the patriarchy what Jordan Peele’s GET OUT did for discussions about racism. Instead, it avoided that discussion and settled for being stylish and posing more questions than it answered.
There’s room for film that provokes conversation; it is refreshing to talk through concepts with other filmgoers, thereby expanding an otherwise solitary enjoyment to a group one. A24 does this time and time again, making (pleasant, sane) discourse all but necessary for their works. But MEN pushed right past that and brushed perilously close to incoherence.
As always, spoilers down below: