Matt Rife: Lucid - A Crowd Work Special

I went into this today ready to laugh as I usually do when watching his crowd work on the internet short videos. Of course, sometimes he makes me uncomfortable and sometimes really uncomfortable. Still, I wanted to watch and laugh. And I did a few times. And I was really uncomfortable a few times. But mainly, I was ready for it to be over because I found it very limiting. The idea of dreams as the focal point of his entire show just stifled anything that went beyond that box he put his show in. It went beyond a few times, yes. But I really think I would have enjoyed a pure stand up routine instead of all crowd work. He's funny and personable, but this time it just didn't completely work for me.

The reviews here are too negative in my opinion. It wasn't the greatest comedy special I've ever seen on netflix, but it definitely had me laughing more than most of the specials that pop up on my feed. Yes, the audience felt a little like it was hand-picked for a crowd work special, and some of the more wacky stories distract from the fact that Matt can find the humor in more mundane details, but it was still funny and Matt still managed to find humor and make quick jokes that I definitely wouldn't be able to think of. Some of the reviews here almost scared me off, so after watching it I figured I'd come add my own.

Matt his crowd work is usually good but you can't build a full show around it. You just don't get enough entertaining scenario's. So, how to fix it? Stage a couple people. The first mom-daughter part felt fully staged. I don't buy it for one second.

Other interactions were quite basic. Not very entertaining. Some of the "regular" comedy he does in between is more of the same of his last specials his stand up just isn't very good, his crowd work usually is. The clips online are short clips out of full shows and only the actually funny ones get uploaded but this shows that you can't force that in a show.

Was listening to it on a walk but if I wasn't I would have turned it off after 15 minutes.

I will admit I only lasted about 15 minutes. The first bit with the mother-daughter seemed totally staged. It had to have been staged and that just seems like cheating and a gimmick. I really like him in his short videos and he does sell out. Tried to get tickets to see him while he was in Maine. They even had to add a couple of shows because they sold out so quickly. But maybe he sticks to his own material and doesn't do crowd work. There's no way you can convince me that that mother and daughter were not planted there. This just absolutely no way it's believable so for that reason I turned it off and came here to leave a review.

Off-the-heels of his Natural Selection flop, Netflix delivers Lucid to try and recapture the weird enigma of Matt Rife. Rife's sudden rise to fame from social media shorts basically had exchanges like this:

Matt: Where do you work?

Guest: Victoria's Secret

Matt: (ADHD screaming) Oh my God! You work at Victoria's Secret?!?!

Audience: *Seal noises of middle-aged woman cackling*

That's pretty much the gist of it. It follows much of the same generic crowd work form factor as Akaash Singh joking about Indian IT workers or Phil Hanley joking about special needs teachers. There is little new or particularly interesting to see with Lucid. If you're not into the same, you probably won't like this special. If you are one of Matt's fan, chances are you will still be disappointed Lucid wasn't a continuous highlight reel.