Alfred Morettis Opus

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.

Opus started off pretty solid but fell apart in the final act. It's similar to other stories like Midsommar, Get Out, Blink Twice, The Menu, etc. So this wasn't anything new, but that wasn't much of an issue for me. The problem is in the explanation for what drives the cult. What it's about - its purpose. Malkovich's character sorta kinda attempts to offer an explanation at the end, but it didn't feel sufficiently solid enough to patch up the holes created by that issue. The acting in here was great though, and it was fun to see Malkovich ham it up the way he did. This was director Mark Anthony Green's first film, and he was also the writer. He has potential, as evidenced by the strong first half of the story. But he needs a bit more work to stick the landing. Video review available on my YouTube channel.

I'm baffled by the overly negative comments offered. This might not be a masterpiece, but it's a very satisfying movie that is not boring to watch. John Malkovitch is spot on as a superstar musician trying a comeback while ensnared in a divergent universe. And choosing Ayo Edebiri as the young ambitious journalist, as spontaneous and skin-deep as Malkovitch's charachter is superficial and cunning, provides a perfect alchemy on screen. We are dealing here with a new generation of horror flicks, the one Jordan Peele gave the patron of with Us. An horror without monsters or serial killers beyond our own selves, our neighbours, or be it our idols. A whole generation of genre films will need to own up to Us, it won't be easy. But that's not a reason to ignore them unilaterally. Opus is a good movie, brilliantly acted, which offers well balanced uneasiness and anguish, adding fringe black humour to the lot regarding the cult op personality and its complacent medias. It would be a shame to go without it because gore and bodies do not occupy most of screen time.

With standout performances by Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich Opus is definitely worth watching for the acting alone. However the biggest turn offs are a few gross moments and a third act that is a chaotic mess.

Yet with outstanding cinematography, slick production design, and stellar music by legendary composers Nile Gregory Rodgers and The-dream, Opus has enough surreal quirks to perhaps propel its destiny into sleeper hit cult status.

The producers may have been thinking they were creating the next big auteur horror thriller, and if this was the case, they certainly missed the mark. Far from being a masterpiece, Opus may be best enjoyed as a guilty pleasure dark satire in which its flaws only contribute to its off kilter charm.

I had high hopes for Opus, especially since it promised to explore the dark side of celebrity culture. John Malkovich is incredible as always, playing Alfred Moretti, a reclusive pop star inviting industry elites to his mysterious desert compound. The setting was stunning, and the mood was appropriately eerie. But somewhere along the way, the story lost me. It felt like the film wanted to be profound and unsettling, but it didn't have enough depth to really deliver. The characters felt like caricatures, and the horror elements were stylish but shallow. It's one of those films where the concept is better than the execution. I wanted to be immersed, but I ended up feeling detached.