Nope
★★★★1/2
Some spoilers; come back later if you wish to watch this film cold.
Sorry for being late to the party. For whatever reason, they decided to show Nope two weeks after the major film markets of the world had already seen it. So, this is going to be very old news to you, but Nope… is dope.
Horse trainer O.J. (Daniel Kaaluya) discovers some of his horses are missing, and suspects that UFOs are involved. O.J.’s sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) suggests that they try to capitalize on their problem by capturing high-quality footages of the UFO. Little did they know of the danger that they’re putting themselves on until the true nature of the UFO is revealed. Directed by Jordan Peele, who made the Oscar-winning film “Get Out” and also “Us”.
This is a very entertaining movie, in the way horror movies are. There are several scenes where bad things are about to happen to a large number of people. There’s also this one scene involving the lights in O.J.’s barn that was nail-bitingly creepy. The movie is also pretty funny, like how they made good use of its title in some tense situations. The first half was a little slow and quiet, but that’s just the filmmakers lulling you and bringing your defenses down so that the shocks land harder later on.
The UFOs: I thought I was going to see yet another generic UFO in a Hollywood flick, but Nope actually has an original take on that topic. It was very eerie to see the UFO darting across the sky, even in the daytime. I like how it also has unique interactions with everything on the ground that you may not have seen in other alien encounters films before.
Initially, I didn’t understand the point of Steven Yeun’s character’s subplot, but that’s because I didn’t realize that Yeun’s character already knew about the alien long before O.J. did. It did feel like they dispensed very crucial plot information a bit too quickly, resulting in me and a few other people literally missing the plot. Perhaps it’d no longer be a problem after a second viewing. Yeun’s story is also one of the few places Peele sprinkled some social commentary on, which has become his trademark.
Overall, “Nope” is a great retooling of the alien encounters genre, has quite a few tense and horrific moments, and is one of the more original films you can find out there. One of my favourites of the year.
Originally published on my Facebook Page, here.