2022 ‧ Sci-fi/Horror ‧ 131m
The third film from Jordan Peele, Nope, is a worthy summer blockbuster.
Haywood’s Hollywood Horses, a ranch that wrangles horses for movies, is on hard times after the death of Otis Haywood Sr. Siblings Emerald (Keke Palmer) and Otis Jr (Daniel Kaluuya) are trying to get out of the debt their father put them in, but opportunities fall through. Their neighbor, Jupe (Steven Yeun), a former child actor who owns a western themed tourist trap has been buying horses from the Haywood’s for his business. One day OJ sees a flying saucer and Em decides they should try to record it and cash in. Angel (Brandon Perea), a Fry’s Electronics tech, comes along for the ride after setting up their cameras and seeing a suspicious cloud in the playback. Whatever is behind that cloud does not seem to be coming in peace and Jupe has a plan of his own.
There are some great scares for the audience. The film opens with a gruesome scene that may seem perplexing at first but sets up the tone well. There’s a memorable mass abduction, though that may not exactly be the right word. Most of the scares are in the daylight, but there is an extended night sequence that is quite bloody. How Us made “I Got 5 On It” sinister, Peele gives Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” a similar treatment to great effect. The climax is nail-biting. At risk of a small spoil, you might wish to skip to the next paragraph, it’s hard to determine if it would pair better with Close Encounters or Tremors. Nope may not be an alien terror but it is a monster movie. A monster movie with themes that may take some time to digest.
How we interact with media is a large theme, but also how we interact with animals. Certainly, there is also commentary on how we monetize those interactions. The film opens with a verse from the Bible, Nahum 3:6, that should not be forgotten when the climax unfolds. Peele does a superb job of presenting these ideas without spoon-feeding the audience. You’ll have a lot to chew on as you leave the theater.
The film has a significant amount of dread, and we sit in it for quite some time. That said, it might be a stronger film it if were edited down to 2 hours or even 100 minutes. Not much of that impactful dread would be lost with such a runtime. It probably won’t spark a phenomenon like Get Out, but it might be a better film than Us, which was still very good. Peele goes 3 for 3 here, if you ask me.
I can only imagine how many reviews of this are going to be titled, “Say Yes to ‘Nope.’” I’m saying that for sure.
Grade B+
~Andrew