Movie Review: Him

In a way, a curse was placed upon football-centric psychological horror black comedy Him when Universal elected to use Jordan Peele's name to sell the film. From a business standpoint, it's not hard to see why Universal's marketing department made this decision. Peele has churned out three acclaimed, commercially successful original movies at a time where that's becoming increasingly hard to do and that has given him a level of clout that few others in the industry currently have. The issue with plastering Peele's name all over every trailer, poster, etc. for Him is that his sole contribution to the film was his company Monkeypaw Productions produced it (Kicks helmer Justin Tipping served as director and co-wrote the script alongside Skip Bronkie and Zack Akers). This in turn created a scenario where many people were expecting a film that was on par with the high quality of the films that Peele has wrote/directed himself and when that didn't happen, a lot of people left the theaters feeling duped and that special kind of disgust that comes with feeling like you've been deceived in some way is fueling at least a semi-sizable portion of the negative reactions Him has received.

For me, assessing Him is a little bit of a tricky exercise. While my prior knowledge of Peele's role on Him made me immune to the "deceptive" marketing campaign, the movie-which tells the story of a young star quarterback on the cusp of going pro (Tyriq Withers) who gets far more than bargained for when he's blessed with the opportunity to go train with the aging superstar (Marlon Wayans) he idolized growing up at his desert compound--has plenty of serious narrative/creative flaws that are easy to attack. The presentation of its central themes (sports as religion, football as a violent spectacle akin to the Gladiator Battles of Ancient Battle, the pressure to throw your away humanity in exchange for fame and fortune, a couple more ever-present issues in sports culture that I can't discuss without disclosing major spoilers) is very heavy-handed/obvious and the story gets increasingly silly as it progresses, culminating in a splatterfest final act that is likely to induce many a headshake, eye-roll and hearty unintentional guffaw amongst viewers that aren't picking up what Tipping is putting down. 

On the other hand, there's also some prominent elements that I found to be quite effective. Wayans sets the tone for the entire movie with a gripping performance that oscillates between dead-eyed intensity and snarky goofball while Withers makes for a solid mentee/rival as the well-meaning young buck who doesn't know whether to be alarmed by the morally dubious maniacal behavior of his football hero or mimic him as he hopes to achieve a similar level of greatness on the field, Tipping's confident direction allows him to make a lot of playful, stylish choices that give the film a unique surrealist mindfuck-meets-sicko farce personality and cinematographer Kira Kelly announces herself as a star with a towering buffet of beautiful, dynamic compositions that contain many of the most striking shots of 2025 thus far. There have been a fair number of other horror movies released this year that didn't even come close to having a set of strengths this pronounced. It may not be the next Sinners, Bring Her Back or Weapons, but it's way too endearing and technically proficient in my book to fall into the undesirable no man's land that is forgettability, let alone the rotten stench of the bottom of the barrel.  

My ultimate verdict for Him is that it's well-acted, visually compelling and fun enough to forgive how clumsy and thin its script often is. There's enough here for me to believe that Tipping could make a great movie someday and I hope that the bad reviews/blah commercial performance of Him won't deprive him of the opportunity to potentially further his craft in the future.                           

          

Grade: B-