The Menu (2022)

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Asshat wormie

2023 Asshat Award Winner
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This was ok and certainly better than most garbage that comes out. Kind of weird and the ending was a tad lackluster (I expected the last dish to be more elaborate) but overall not bad. 6.5/10.
 
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Animosity

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One of the more absurd movies I’ve seen in awhile. It was good but the ending was lackluster as wormie said.
 

Ambiturner

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It doesn't quite pay off the tension it was building with scenes like the taco dish.

Didn't seem like anything paid off.

Guy was just annoyed with people? That's it? After it was revealed like half way through the the movie the rest just kinda coasted with nothing important happening. The guys get a 45 second head start, and when they're caught they just come back? Wtf was the point of that?

And why did all those employees agree to mass suicide? Not just the cooks, but security and everything. All because that one chick thought it was a good idea?

And the fake coast guard, what was the point of any of that?

It's like someone had a very rough outline of a story, never bothered filling any of it in and then they just said "Fuck it" and made it anyways
 
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Ossoi

Tranny Chaser
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Didn't seem like anything paid off.

Guy was just annoyed with people? That's it? After it was revealed like half way through the the movie the rest just kinda coasted with nothing important happening. The guys get a 45 second head start, and when they're caught they just come back? Wtf was the point of that?

And why did all those employees agree to mass suicide? Not just the cooks, but security and everything. All because that one chick thought it was a good idea?

And the fake coast guard, what was the point of any of that?

It's like someone had a very rough outline of a story, never bothered filling any of it in and then they just said "Fuck it" and made it anyways

The chefs suicided because of the cult of personality around the head chef, presumably
 

k^M

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The whole human smore ending was weird, as the chef even said you should have tried harder to escape.

The dude who knew going in everyone would die (including himself), who the fuck idolises someone that much? Weird ass movie
 

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
36,050
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Didn't seem like anything paid off.

Guy was just annoyed with people? That's it? After it was revealed like half way through the the movie the rest just kinda coasted with nothing important happening. The guys get a 45 second head start, and when they're caught they just come back? Wtf was the point of that?

And why did all those employees agree to mass suicide? Not just the cooks, but security and everything. All because that one chick thought it was a good idea?

And the fake coast guard, what was the point of any of that?

It's like someone had a very rough outline of a story, never bothered filling any of it in and then they just said "Fuck it" and made it anyways
Pretty much my feeling too.

One of the big differences between good writing and bad writing is coherent characters who act with a set of principles that the viewer/reader/whatever can follow as logical (unless the point is it's a crazy person).

I think the main characters actually had this somewhat decently, but pretty much all the background characters were completely lacking it. And some of the main characters just going along with it without putting up any kind of resistance is just...hard to suspend disbelief.

The start of the movie was pretentious city though. I laughed quite a bit at it.

Just one example of where the movie loses me is Margot having the knife and killing the one lady, and then just...abandoning the knife, calling someone on short wave radio and sitting back down in the fucking dining room without the knife? What? She's clearly scrappy enough to kill someone in self defense. Sure, you don't get a cheeky cheeseburger ending, but the character veers off at that point.

Edit: Had watched the RLM 2022 Catch-Up yesterday and because they seemed to like it, I figured I'd give this a go. Most of their review was spoilers though, which I skipped (and because horror isn't really my jam, was going to skip this otherwise; although not sure this is really horror). Their Willy Wonka parallel seems real spot on in retrospect. And, regarding my spoiler above, I saw the picture but couldn't make out what was actually in it, and with them pointing that out, my issue with the above kind of gets resolved, even though it'd be a huge gamble for Margot. Which sucks (since they addressed it) because that was the glaring one, and I don't feel like trying to remember others.
 
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Utnayan

I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
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Lol what the fuck did I just watch.

You guys rock.

Wife is working tonight, so I hit up the movie thread, see this and three and a half stars which around here is an Oscar award winning film. Popped the corn, sitting on the couch in the theater room with my dog getting some popcorn too - fire this up on HBO Max - and…

Yeah. I’m rating this five stars. Pure unadulterated what the fuck.
 
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Rajaah

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The whole human smore ending was weird, as the chef even said you should have tried harder to escape.

The dude who knew going in everyone would die (including himself), who the fuck idolises someone that much? Weird ass movie

Yeah, a lot of this didn't make any sense / came off as a bit farcical.

The guy who brought Margot there didn't seem like somebody okay with dying at the end of the evening. Those crooked businessmen and the cheating Joe Biden guy definitely didn't.

Margot was hired by the guy to be his date, right? Her place was supposed to be for his wife or something, and either she flaked out or he decided not to get her killed? Never explained that, IIRC. And at the beginning Margot certainly seemed like she knew him really well as opposed to being a hooker he hired. I thought she was his mistress or something. Still unsure about that.
 

sakkath

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Margot was hired by the guy to be his date, right? Her place was supposed to be for his wife or something, and either she flaked out or he decided not to get her killed?
His girlfriend broke up with him and he needed a +1 since they don't do bookings for 1 so he hired her.
 
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Sinistkir13

Golden Squire
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I went into this totally blind and was not disappointed. Personally, The Menu balanced the satire enough for me to just enjoy the ride because although it presents the chef side as rather serious, it is the varying degrees of spoiled, daft morons aside from Margot who offer a nice counter to where I could buy into the subtle absurdity of it all and have a great time. Nicholas Hoult's character was definitely the giveaway to what kind of direction things were steering in terms of dark comedic tones, but even he had an interesting twist to his character.

It does not overstay its welcome or really try to explain too much outside of the general motives/themes, which I found to work well given the again kind of absurd nature overall. I also just have to say it was refreshing to not see another try-hard, misery-porn, which given the premise I could easily imagine exactly that.
 

k^M

Blackwing Lair Raider
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I went into this totally blind and was not disappointed. Personally, The Menu balanced the satire enough for me to just enjoy the ride because although it presents the chef side as rather serious, it is the varying degrees of spoiled, daft morons aside from Margot who offer a nice counter to where I could buy into the subtle absurdity of it all and have a great time. Nicholas Hoult's character was definitely the giveaway to what kind of direction things were steering in terms of dark comedic tones, but even he had an interesting twist to his character.

It does not overstay its welcome or really try to explain too much outside of the general motives/themes, which I found to work well given the again kind of absurd nature overall. I also just have to say it was refreshing to not see another try-hard, misery-porn, which given the premise I could easily imagine exactly that.
This is kind of what I was expecting more and more after the first death, but it never came? I was anticipating similar to saw, the Chef was dying or something incurable and wanted to stick it to some fuckers but then why would all the young chef's also agree to the roast.

If he had been doing this for however long (seems like quite some time) why did he pick that night to die on? Half of an awesome premise, the other half is kind of... missing
 

Guurn

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I really liked this until the first death, and then it kinda sucked for a bit, and then I was ok with the ending. It's pretty much the way it had to go. Overall I'd give it something like a 6.5 out of 10. The main chicks boyfriend reminded me of someone I know. I assume this is true for many of you guys. She was relatable in many ways other than the whoring part. I'll have to watch it again since my wife fell asleep just as the first chef died, we'll see how that goes. Boy did the s'mores thing not bother me at all. I'm surprised it bothered anyone really. The main issue I had is why didn't anyone go down fighting. What choice do you have?

Side note - I liked how Anya Taylor-Joy isn't very good looking but she knows how to dress and get done up, she knows it and embraces it. At the end as she escapes we see her blemishes as well.
 

Rajaah

Honorable Member
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I really liked this until the first death, and then it kinda sucked for a bit, and then I was ok with the ending. It's pretty much the way it had to go. Overall I'd give it something like a 6.5 out of 10. The main chicks boyfriend reminded me of someone I know. I assume this is true for many of you guys. She was relatable in many ways other than the whoring part. I'll have to watch it again since my wife fell asleep just as the first chef died, we'll see how that goes. Boy did the s'mores thing not bother me at all. I'm surprised it bothered anyone really. The main issue I had is why didn't anyone go down fighting. What choice do you have?

Side note - I liked how Anya Taylor-Joy isn't very good looking but she knows how to dress and get done up, she knows it and embraces it. At the end as she escapes we see her blemishes as well.

Yeah, I know guys like him too. The douchey pretentious guys who pretend to give a shit about their GF/dates while not even knowing how to listen to them.

Anya Taylor-Joy isn't that good looking but she isn't bad either, has a really nice 'bod, and knows how to dress to accentuate it. Or whoever picks out her costumes does. There was no point where I got tired of looking at her.
 

jayrebb

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She's interesting to look at even if not your type. I don't evaluate her as fuckable or not, she's just not in that category for me.
 
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Ambiturner

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I'm not clear on the deal with the asian lady. She thought Anya was going to replace her and that the chef never actually told her about the barrel?

How does any of that make sense? How would you replace someone if they're all going to die in an hour anyways and that would have required the chef to know Anya was even going to be there, which he did not. It also goes against the idea that they are all so devoted to him that they'll gladly kill themselves since she's going against his wishes either way

Or am I misunderstanding what that was all about?
 

sakkath

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I think you need to let go of the idea that things in the movie (especially peoples motivations) need to make sense.
But in general yes, Chef Slowik didn't tell Elsa about the barrel, then chastised her in front of Margot about 'forgetting it' then sent Margot to go fetch it. He was also showing interest / some kind of connection with Margot so there is merit to the idea that Elsa could feel that she was being replaced. The fact that she was going to die soon - well she probably still wanted to die in the 2IC position since the whole thing appeared to be a cult of personality.
 
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Oldbased

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She's like Asian or Chinese, but made up to look White girl crazy.
Explains the oddity looks.
 

Asshat wormie

2023 Asshat Award Winner
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The kitchen staff was fanatical. The Asian lady crazy made perfect sense.