I think I’m just a sucker for a good trailer.
When Him’s trailer dropped, I was hype. A few of my friend groups sent it to me, and the general buzz was that it looked great. A sports horror, playing on the idea of pushing yourself past your breaking point for a chance at ultimate success. This, combined with the cult-like visuals, sharp editing, and Marlon Wayans acting his ass off, looked like an absolute winner.
Like I said, I am a sucker. Reviews started to drop, and I realized I’d better adjust my expectations.
Him follows Cameron Cade, a promising college football star who has been given a second chance: to train with Isaiah White for a week, and maybe replace him as quarterback of the Saviors. Isaiah is the GOAT, leading the team to victory eight times and is not ready to hang up his helmet just yet. While Isaiah claims this week is just to “eat, sleep and breathe football,” things get weird and Cam starts to wonder what Isaiah really wants from him, and if being the GOAT is really worth the cost.
This movie kind of makes me mad, because when it’s good, it’s great. Days 1 and 2 of the week are pretty excellent, good storytelling and a great set-up of what’s to come. The movie looks beautiful, with lots of interesting shots and really fun moments of visual storytelling. I appreciate the moments where the movie is trying something different (like the x-ray vision during the football scene on Day 2), and even when some moments flop, they show a desire to create something new in a genre with a lot of sameness from big studio films.
Unfortunately, from Day 3 on, the movie really tanks in quality. The setup doesn’t go anywhere and is ultimately abandoned for random acts of violence that don’t feel connected to the story or its desired themes. Watching it feels like the writers had no idea how to wrap things up and resorted to throwing spaghetti at the wall until something stuck. When the movie ends though, I was just left wondering how we got here and what story the creators actually wanted to tell.
Religion is a major idea in this movie, and I honestly enjoy seeing horror dig into the idea of religiosity and ritual as a source of control or chaos. The way it’s shown here though is so ham-fisted that it almost plays like a parody. Nearly every scene is loaded with cross imagery, bible quotes, and Christianese like “we play for him because he died for us.” By the last act, I felt like the characters were breaking the fourth wall and saying, “Hey! It’s almost like football is a religion or something!” I wouldn’t be so hung up on this if it went anywhere, but it doesn’t. In the end, the conclusion seems to be “Maybe football shouldn’t be a religion,” and if they were going to reference religion this much, they need to do more.
I do have to say that the acting is great. I enjoyed Tyriq Withers as the lead, but Marlon Wayans is the star of this movie. He shows here that he has an untapped range and can handle way more than his typical comedic roles. Every scene with him is electric, and I’m hoping he gets the opportunity to do more in the future. Julia Fox is also a gem as the comic relief, and many of her lines got a laugh out of me.
Overall, I’m disappointed at the squandering of an excellent idea and great premise. In my opinion, this needed to be like The Substance to work. The creators really needed to go there in order to carry the film’s central theme to its natural conclusion: what are you willing to sacrifice to be the GOAT? If the answer truly is “everything” as Cam states in the trailer, we need to see that, or we need to see his change of heart. The reality is that we see neither, and this makes the whole thing feel very aimless. While it still has its moments, they aren’t enough to make up for the parts that just don’t work.
