I'm Alex Kirby and welcome to the second outing of Press X. This time around we move from android revolution to the jellybean astronauts of Among Us. Here, we don’t just ask if the latest video game adaptation is faithful — we ask if it levels up, glitches out, or just needs a hard reset.
Originally launched as a humble mobile game in 2018, Among Us quickly became a digital campfire of suspicion and betrayal. Players, cast as colorful, jellybean-shaped astronauts, worked together aboard a failing space vessel, while secretly trying to sniff out the traitor(s) among them. The concept was simple: do your tasks, trust no one, and vote someone off the ship before it’s too late.
It was a kid-friendly The Thing. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to Twitch streamers and YouTubers, Among Us exploded into a full-blown phenomenon. It joined the elite pantheon of mobile-born mega-hits like Angry Birds and Five Nights at Freddy’s, transcending the small screen and becoming cultural shorthand for “someone’s being sus.”
Which is why no one was expecting this R-rated, ultra-serious live-action film to... actually work.
So yes, let's get that part out of the way first. It is called Among Us, it absolutely does what the game does in giving us a tense claustrophobic space horror with paranoia running through the veins of these crewmates. So if your 7-year-old pointed at the marquee and said, "Look mommy its Among Us!" The title is just vague enough to feel justified in telling that little white lie 'No, that's not what you're thinking of sweetie..oh look Frozen 3!"
And you could absolutely see the movie without knowing it was based on the game(which indeed was based on The Thing). It did feel like they made a well made space horror and didn't know what to call it, so they slapped Among Us on there as a way to drum up interest.
Andre Øvredal has a knack for great suspense building and creating an atmospheric experience, which is certainly the most important aspect in a space horror. He does his best work here.
Writer Sammy-Joe Ellis put together a confident enough script that Among Us earned a GRA nomination in Season 26 for best adapted screenplay. Sammy wrote a compelling character played by Evan Rachel Wood(a huge standout), and the supporting cast did enough to keep us intrigued throughout.
The plot definitely is as simple as the game: Earth has become inhabitable due to chemical warfare a decade prior. Whoever was left, reside on different ships across the galaxy. A ship called The Skeld is captained by Nick and Carolyn Bryant (Richard Madden and E.R.Wood respectively) and the TL;DR is their crew seems to be unraveling over the prolonged period of space. Crewmates turning on each other and now a sudden noise will have anyone on the edge.
It does just enough to borrow the jist of Among Us and give us a unique twist to the experience we would have if we had played the game.
On a $70M budget, the film didn't turn the kind of profit we had hoped for with a name as big as the game, the profit fell $17M in the red. Domestic and Foreign were close together: 54M and 65M respectively, and I think a big part of that was the R-rating kept the biggest demographic away from purchasing tickets. But as previously stated, even with a flop, the film did earn nominations for GRAs in the Best Adapted Screenplay nod and Best Starring Couple(Wood/Madden) categories. Critics were reminded of The Thing and Alien, praised Wood's performance and Andre's direction, but felt like it could have done a lot better as a game adaptation and could have given the supporting crew a little more to do.
Overall, Among Us is an example of game adaptations done right. It offered a unique flavor that we couldn't get by just playing the game, a film that feels like it lives in the universe of the IP, and while audiences didn't show up in droves like they would have if it were a direct adaptation; the ones Who did show up left the theater thinking "I'm not mad I saw it."
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