Nope

Jordan Peele quickly rose among the ranks of directors that would be worth looking out for after the success that came from his unique horror experiments like Get Out and Us. Both films may not have overly performed at the box office, but they gained Peele a fan-base, showed the world his capability as a legit horror director despite being known for his comedic work, and proved that even when he didn’t make a huge success, he developed enough of an appreciation from fans that any of his future projects would have people thirsty to check them out, with his latest feature film, the 2022 sci-fi horror, Nope, showing just that. In Aqua Dulce, California, Otis Haywood Jr, or OJ (played by Daniel Kaluuya), comes from a family of horse handlers for both television and film, but is finding it hard to continue on working after his father, Otis Haywood Sr. (played by Keith David) was recently killed after being struck by a metallic object that supposedly fell from a plane. With his sister, Emerald (played by Keke Palmer) focusing on her own career due to having little respect for the family business after being secluded from it, OJ’s last course of earning income is selling some of his horses to Ricky ‘’Jupe’’ Park (played by Steven Yeun), a former child star who after a traumatic past experience exploited the tragedy and made a theme park attraction out of it. Out in their isolated house and ranch, the Haywood siblings discover electric interference and strange rumbling and shrieking sounds surrounding them, only to suddenly catch a glimpse of a strange flying object hiding in the clouds. Convinced it’s an alien, the two try and stockpile as much camera equipment as possible, even deciding to work alongside tech salesman and alien obsessor, Angel (played by Brandon Perea), and famed cinematographer Antlers Holst (played by Michael Wincott) to get concrete footage of this UFO before it sweeps them up as well. While Nope did well critically and eventually made its money back, it was very divisive among those who saw it, with some praising it as Peele’s best film, and others left not as impressed.

Peele has always referenced popular movies and ideas in his films, and each of his three movies have mirrored popular horror genres; with Get Out being akin to a psychological thriller, Us containing a lot of tropes from the slasher genre, and Nope clearly replicating sci-fi horror films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Signs (which were inspirations for this film). While he can stumble sometimes in the whole package of his projects and get a little lost in the final execution of a very bizarre and even abstract concept, he always has strong ideas and usually strong defined deliveries of said ideas, and Nope is no different as it presents this relatively straightforward story of a brother and sister trying to capture proof of an alien over their house, and makes it very well paced, written, and directed. Like his other films, it’s fun trying to understand the meaning and purpose behind the themes and content presented in his films, and the delivery of his work always feels distinctly his own with its own unique atmosphere of being comical with a tint of disturbing undertones. The film is not necessarily a horror film and is very much not trying to be as consistently scary as the previous two films, but it does feel genuinely unnerving in several points throughout the picture. It very much captures the feeling of being circled by a predator and essentially mirroring what Jaws did for the water with the sky, as constantly having to look up to see if you catch of glimpse of something that could swipe you up at any moment is a new feeling that hasn’t truly been tackled yet, taking advantage of the empty vastness and all-encompassing element of the sky and making that pretty threatening. The message of the film is also pretty strong; exposing the glorification and exploitation of illusive creatures and species, and how humanity is often unable to look away from something that is even seen as dangerous if it would mean they can publicize off of it, it highlights a component in the entertainment industry that isn’t normally talked about, and how all of this connects back to the UFO situation and what it truly is works really well and is very smart. However, one of the biggest issues with how this story is constructed is how it feels like the message, while well done and handled nicely, feels like it overtakes the main narrative as it keeps going. When it comes to elements like backstory, defined goals, and even something like character motivation and the conclusion, they don’t feel effectively established or delivered because they feel secondary to the themes of the story. It leaves a majority of the film feeling engaging, but also hollow in some senses and results in a climax that isn’t that effective and even a little ill-fitting for the way the film was building itself up.

There are very few characters featured in this film, so you’d think that it would allow for more time to flesh them out and give them rounded arcs, but as the film keeps going, it’s hard to picture that’s how it’s going to work out. On the flip side, these are likeable and memorable faces (for the most part) and while the writing for them can be a little simplistic at times and can be hindered due to the ‘message over narrative’ stance, it has the benefit of having really strong actors portraying these parts. Both Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer are very strong as the leads; the two have proven their talents in other material (Kaluuya himself is two-time nominated, one-time Oscar-winning actor), the two have very strong brother/sister chemistry with each other, it’s nice how they contrast each other with him being a more quiet, no-nonsense, ‘’only speak when need to’’ person, whereas she is a spitfire, full of energy and a ”spark of life” person in every sense of the word, and while the two don’t get much else outside of the bare minimum the plot delivers for them, those little nuggets are more than can be said for some of the others that come up later The side characters don’t leave too much of an impression, but they are still mostly saved due to the acting. Brandon Perea does pretty well with his part even though he really is just comic relief and doesn’t contribute much to the overall story, Michael Wincott as this esteemed cinematographer who comes to help them near the end has a cool voice and presence, but he comes in way too late and his final scenes are kind of stupid, and Steven Yeun actually starts off pretty good and is presented with a great and instantly memorable backstory (that flashback does the impossible of making a monkey pretty creepy), but he is completely written out of the last act of the film, making his entire sub-plot feel entirely pointless. It manages to serve its purpose in fuelling the message, not the story, and that isn’t how it should work.

Despite being known as a comedic writer, his films have weirdly never properly worked when it comes to their comedy. Get Out has some forced comic relief that didn’t really work, and Us’  opening felt like a TGIF sitcom, so the only real purpose the humor had in those films was adding a sense of levity to a whole lot of disturbing and introspective quandaries, whereas in this film, the film ironically doesn’t require levity, and therefore doesn’t have a lot of these comedic moments, yet is strangely much better at the comedy. Whether it’s through an improvement in tonal balance, the choice of actors or just because it didn’t feel out of place, the light-hearted banter between the characters feels much more natural and the comedy works a lot better because of it. It’s not anything legitimately hilarious or truly memorable, but when it tells a joke, it isn’t painful or disrupts the mood. The movie is also shot really well by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, and really takes advantage of the open space to really capture not only this sense of isolation, but also this vulnerability of being left in the open with this ever-present threat looming over without anywhere to hide. The scenes involving the UFO are really well handled from a visual, sound, and atmospheric point. The camera work really makes good use of the expanded screen ratio, the limited sound and how silently it moves through the clouds really makes it feel like a predator and a truly horrifying presence through the disturbing noises made thanks to the wonderfully crunchy and even primal sound design by Johnnie Burn, and the aspect of not being able to look at it really creates a situation where it makes the audience not want to look at it themselves, they lead to a lot of great moments. As previously stated, the movie is not really a horror film and more a sci-fi spectacle with disturbing moments factored into it, but unlike the past two films, the film does stumble a bit with the handling of its tone. While the first two acts are a nice balance between more general light-heartedness with legitimate terror and suspense, the final act is just a flat-out blockbuster, where everything about it sucks out a lot of the fear in the situation and just makes it feel like any other action sequence from the camera work, acting and even score by Michael Abels which makes its ties to being a unique Western a little too apparent. It’s not done poorly and has its shining parts, but it’s not scary in the slightest by that point.

Nope maybe doesn’t reach the same levels of awe inspiring that Jordan Peele’s previous two films reached, but its honestly nice to see that even in one where there are problems, it still results in a good movie. It demonstrates that he at his core knows how to make a film feel unique, how to detail out a script, how to direct his actors, how to refer to popular films without feeling like a rip-off, and how to create new horror in a way that showed how he pretty much helped mainstream horror come back into the public space and be discussed as a viable film genre again. He deserves a lot of credit for that, and while Nope is still flawed in areas involving its third act, the messy handling of some story and character points, and focus on the message outweighing the focus on the story, it still has a likeable cast, great suspenseful scenes, a nice flavor of disturbing and light-hearted, and a fresh coat of paint on the alien sci-fi genre that is worth checking out. Avert your eyes from the sky and see if this spectacle will keep your eyes locked the whole time.