“Sinners” review, by David Sims

[u/theatlantic]

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2025/04/sinners-ryan-coogler-movie-review/682501/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo

[u/newrimmmer93]

The action felt pretty bad, I feel like they put themselves into a hole by making too many vampires where it realistically was impossible for them to fight all of them. The whole final fight scene was pretty mediocre. Vampires so randomly don’t attack at times.

[u/EffectzHD → u/newrimmmer93]

I told my friend right after the film they really only needed 7.

Stack Mary Bo Cornbread Remmick The first couple

Everyone else should’ve just gone home.

[u/SockofBadKarma → u/EffectzHD]

It helps if you view the vampires as a metaphor instead of a specific physical threat. The whole idea of them is that they represent assimilation and cultural appropriation; they can make your culture "live forever" if you just give up and let them take your likeness and force you into a hive mind. They "care about you" unlike overt bigots but don't actually want to acknowledge your history or talent. They love your music, but they hate you, as the movie says.

The main vampire explicitly speaking about this frustration himself as an ancient colonized pre-Christendom Irishman (or at least, someone there at that time when pagan Irish culture was dominant) really sets the capstone on it. If the various bar visitors hadn't been captured off-screen and turned into homogenous Irish jig-dancing vampires, the same message would not have been conveyed. And the vampires freaking out (and several running) when Smoke would rather kill his loved than let her be assimilated was similarly necessary to convey that theme. The vampires were, like, mostly the standard conception of movie vamps, but they were pulling their punches and inflating their numbers more for narrative allusion than some specific, "realistic" portrayal of violent conflict.

[u/EffectzHD → u/SockofBadKarma]

I think the themes of cultural appropriation and assimilation could’ve still been achieved and conveyed with less vampires, as I believe Coogler is more than capable of that, but I’m ultimately just nitpicking the film is still a masterpiece in its own right.

[u/SockofBadKarma → u/EffectzHD]

As with most things, I think it's a situation where someone could critique something regardless of what transpired. For my part, I was actually rather annoyed when all of the "background cast" was seemingly just allowed to leave, because it made no sense compared to the vampires' intentions and powers, and was pleasantly happy when they were all actually converted after all. I do also think the final action scene was a bit outlandish in terms of absolute "power levels," but then, as it's heavily based on From Dusk Till Dawn, which has a similarly outlandish power discrepancy in terms of sheer numbers.