Just finished watching The Menu with some interest, because of the disparate reviews above. I think I'm somewhere in between Nate and Mara. It was the kind of movie i found interesting enough to want to stay till the end, while still a little anxious for it to get there.
But It may be a little unfair to criticize if on "suspension of disbelief" grounds. Suspension of disbelief is not really a criteria for this genre stuff; a lack of verisimilitude is built in. As far as what genre it is, it's kind of a mash up of horror, social satire, and black humor (with a little
Ratatouille thrown in at the end.)
It might have been better to pick one genre and stick with it. Horror needs suspense, and the cat, here, was released from bag pretty early; social satire needs to be smart, and this is just kind of smart-ish; and black humor needs to be funny, and here, not so much. (Although I did get one chuckle, when one guys crime was that he once had asked for a substitution; the only bad meal I ever got at my local fine-dining restaurant was the time I asked if I could substitute risotto for Chef's quinoa, lol. My salmon was shamefully overcooked
)
And I could appreciate one sub-text. I once worked in the signature restaurant of a world-class chef, manning the sautée station. And yes, there were a lot of "yes chefs" and yes, the chef was
always addressed as "Chef" and had, within the organization, presidential status--all within an industry, the service industry, that is in itself kind of demeaning, in that one
has to, constantly, suck up to someone.
Anyway, I could appreciate the effort at something kind of high-concept, something original, even if it wasn't as tightly realized as it might have been. But, for what it is, it well executed, so I'm probably around a 6.5
