The Menu (2022)

This movie was fantastic, and I say that as someone who absolutely hates about 80-90% of what's been released movie and TV-wise in the last 5 years or more.

I went in pretty blind, and wouldn't even have given it a shot if I didn't remember seeing a blurb about it from the RLM vid from a few months back. I remember the ads for it being interesting as well. The first place you go is, "Oh, it's a horror movie and PEOPLE are on 'The Menu'! LAME" because horror movies suck and are 97% stupidity written by and for morons. But they didn't go there at all.

Everything goes pretty much in a semi-believable direction with increasing levels of "Hmm, wait... what's happening?" Combined with a lot of sharp satire, especially with Hoult's character. Although the food critic and the toadie are pretty spot-on as well with their dialogue when it comes to pretentious foodie BS. Actually all the characters are pretty sharp satire IMO. Stock bros who think they're above it all, the movie '''star''' who doesn't really care about the food and is more interested in clout or being seen with 'the right people' even if he has no idea if these are in fact any of those people.

Then it all starts to go off the rails when the guy shoots himself. The kitchen staff then goes on like it's no big deal, WTF! Not only was it no big deal it was premeditated and part of the menu!

From there it's kind of(?) horror-ish in that you're rooting for the girl to get away from the situation of near certain death, but I'd say that's the only really horror-ish element. The rest is to be understood as the blackest of black comedy with a RICHLY deserving target: super-rich idiots obsessed with food as a status enhancer. The part that sealed it for me was why Leguizamo's character was there: his not terrible but overhyped movie pissed off Chef on a flight. Holy shit awesome, I'm dying. Shades of Hot Fuzz where killing the little guy wasn't a grand conspiracy to grab the land and cover it up, but because the house wasn't in keeping with the village's 'rustic aesthetic', and the other guy was a bad actor who 'murdered Bill Shakespeare first'.

For those saying ATJ's character should have kept the knife... really? You saw all the hulking security guys, right? She's maybe 120lbs, right? You've been watching too much marvel if you think that's the least bit realistic of a scenario. Not that absolute realism is high on the list in a movie like this, but still. Plus it killed me that the guy who got caught last in the henhouse wasn't beat up or anything, he got a food reward. And instead of being weirded out he's like, "Eh... actually that looks pretty good... Thanks!"

What really makes this movie is the acting though. Ralph Fiennes is PERFECT in this role, the movie absolutely doesn't work without someone like him carrying it. ATJ and Hoult also are excellent.


9/10 for me, thoroughly entertaining and smart dark comedy with all kinds of unpredictable wtf-ness.