Alfred Morettis Opus

I went to a Cineworld Unlimited card holders preview of "Opus" earlier this week. I can see why it hasn't been well reviewed, but I have to admit that I rather enjoyed it.

After three decades out of public life, Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich), the biggest popstar of the 90's announces a new album and invites several selected journalists and influencers to his compound, for a weekend listening party. Included in the group is Ariel (Aye Edebiri) an inexperienced journalist at a culture magazine. As the group arrive, they discover that Moretti's compound is home to a number of passionate followers, though only Ariel seems to be concerned by the unsettling vibe of the place.

As I say, I can understand the complaints that people have had. I don't think it explores the things it's talking about very well. There are nods to celebrity indulgence and cult experiences. Thinly veiled jibes at scientology and at how magazine journalism works. But nods is all they are. Once the secrets of the film start to spill out, it briefly becomes a relatively standard horror film and then ends with a hint of a twist. This section is perhaps where the film is it's most basic and it's reasonably dull at this point.

I preferred it a lot more in the first half, where the film reminded me a lot of "Midsommar". An isolated environment where the existing group may, or may not, have malevolent intent towards the confused guests. Malkovich is having a ball as Moretti and whilst I never quite bought that the music would be "world altering pop" it's pitched as - I did at least think that the Nile Rodgers provided jams were good.

I think that there's not enough here to recommend that you head out to the cinema to see the film, but in the more forgiving world of home viewing, it'll find its fans.

Opus (2025) is the newest movie from A24 and it was very underwhelming, but it wasn't terrible.

Positives for Opus (2025): The movie has an interesting enough plot involving the music industry. The acting is very good for what they had to work with. There are some cool things with the directing style. The movie moves at a good pace to it. And finally, the movie has a very interesting ending.

Negatives for Opus (2025): The plot has some wonky execution to it. The characters aren't interesting or well developed. I barely knew what was happening with the story. And finally, I have no idea what the point of this movie was supposed to be.

Overall, Opus (2025) is an okay but also very underwhelming movie from A24.

This had good potential and John Malkovich can usually be relied upon when eccentricity is needed, but the rest of this is an incomplete and rather messy reminder of "Midsommar" meets "Ten Little Indians". He is the reclusive pop star "Moretti" who announces after almost thirty years away, that he is to release his comeback album. The industry goes wild for this news and when he announces his own version of a golden ticket and invites a select group to join him for an exclusive get together at his ranch, the enthusiast journalist "Ariel" (Ayo Edebiri) accompanies her limelight hogging boss to this ultimate weekend. Of course, as soon as she arrives she finds the place akin to a cult. Loads of almost automaton acolytes, some cruelly painful oyster shucking and loads of sexually fluid flamboyance from their host all starts to get her heckles up and gradually we become aware that their is an altogether ulterior motive for this carefully contrived fine dining experience. When one of their number goes missing, well things rapidly speed to a denouement that is straight out of Agatha Christie. The point it makes in the end is actually quite a clever one, but the rest of this is all derivative and simplistic. Why were this group selected? Who are they? What have they in common with each other or with their antagonist? For something that's supposed to be random and spontaneous, the entire plot depends on characters making very specific (and not always the most natural of) choices en route. Malkovich does stand out, but that might also be as much to do with the really mediocre writing and the remainder of the cast delivering a very join-the-dots performance. Sadly, this is nothing original nor special and really disappoints.

What starts as a tense, creepy, something's-off-here cult movie ends as a confusing mess with little to no payoff.

The acting by the leads (Edebiri, Malkovich, Bartlett) was superb, whereas the other characters were all lacking depth, boring, and filler for the sake of what this movie considers to be "plot." Edebiri, as always, is fantastic at her craft, able to express so many emotions in her facial expressions, eye movements, and tone of voice. Malkovich is wonderful and plays the icon of Moretti perfectly. Bartlett plays a lovable asshole who you would never want as your boss, and he's damn good at the role.

A lot of the odd elements in this movie felt like things the writers threw in for the sake of making the movie feel more eerie and unsettling while simultaneously never offering any explanation or reason as to why they were included.

The first act felt a little long, act two ramped up way too fast and increased the stakes way too soon, and act three was a mess that had no pacing direction whatsoever. The very middle of act two felt like what should have been the midway point of act three, so when act three starts everything feels rushed to try and catch up with the feelings evoked already in the previous act.

What I watched was a hodgepodge of ideas with a half-baked story poorly attempting to tie it all together. It's as if someone mashed together Jonestown, pop icons David Bowie and Prince, Midsommar, and Get Out into a giant nothing burger. Really disappointed in this, though I still feel like it's worth seeing once just to feel the weight of certain scenes that were actually executed great. Even the cinematography was stunning, but the plot was a turd painted gold. 5.5/10.

Okay. Sooooo... uuhhhhh..... how do I start talking about this movie? Well, it's DISTURBING AS FUDGE for a start. There wasn't as much gore in this movie as I was thinking. Honestly, I don't even know what I was thinking when going to the cinema to watch this. The concept is not that bad. The REAL question is: Was it executed well enough to be a "good" movie? Well, it depends on what kind of horror/thrillers you are into. There's a scene in the middle of the movie that made me cringe. The ending wasn't really what I was expecting, which can be a good and a bad thing. I don't know if it is a good or bad thing in this case. The movie was pretty underwhelming, which I think was just trying to build the tension. When blood WAS on the screen, though, there wasn't loads of it. But there was an "injury" (not a kill) that was pretty painful to watch. If you have seen the movie, then you probably know which one I'm talking about. I'm talking about the bean bag one. If you know, you know. The "twist" at the end of the movie wasn't something that I saw coming. I wouldn't say that this is a good movie, but I wouldn't say it's a bad one either.