I was moderately excited about this film, having enjoyed director Jordan Peele's earlier film Get Out (but not seen Us). The set-up is good, a horse training family who find strange goings on at their farm. This quickly escalates into chasing UFOs.The film is unusual in that they are not trying to prevent the aliens from destroying the Earth, or even trying to escape from them. The aim is just to get a photo to make themselves rich and famous. If this sounds rather shallow I suppose it is supposed to be, as satire. It's undermined by the fact that there are already plenty of 'photos' of aliens so one more photo isn't going to prove anything.
I'd have preferred a direct horror film, as the lack of motive made it rather confusing. I don't know if you were supposed to understand the elaborate set-up at the end with the battery powered kites, but I felt like I barely knew what was going on, and the rules weren't clear (can the alien see you if you are under a roof? does it matter if you look at it?)
Alongside the peril of trying to run away/run towards the alien, is a more interesting mystery about some unexplained phenomenon twenty years ago involving a chimp. That is linked by the Jupiter character who is now foolishly trying to tame the alien. He gets his comeuppance, much like the fools who ran Jurassic Park (though I'd say his plan is better than trying to tame the giant monster by breaking it like a horse).
Because the central character is very downbeat and grumpy it drags down the mood a bit, and requires an extremely perky sidekick (his sister) plus wacky tech guy. Those two are fine, the gravelly cameraman annoyed me though.
