Nope follows two siblings that become convinced that UFOs are visiting their ranch to abduct horses. Seeing a path to fortune, they set out to capture it on video.
Nope is Jordan Peele's Jaws. A chopped, screwed, and depraved homage to the summer blockbuster with stunning anxiety-inducing, white-knuckled suspense pieces that had my heart racing. Peele's loving hate letter to the blockbuster is his most ambitious project to date that forces us to question our obsession with spectacle. Wildly creative, constantly twisting and turning, masterfully crafted with Oscar-worthy sound design, Nope is a worthy follow-up to Get Out and Us.
Jordan Peele has had perhaps the most prolific run for a new director in the last decade. Get Out his debut film became a cultural phenomenon and garnered Best Picture and Director nominations at the Oscars in addition to a win for Best Original Screenplay. His win felt like the coronation of an exciting new auteur, which was further evident with his equally terrific sophomore movie Us. How does a director of that caliber top himself? Enter his latest movie Nope, Peele's most ambitious, off-the-wall, and deranged movie yet. Like a studio gave him a blank check and asked no further questions—best indicated by the movie's chilling cold open the features a bloodied sitcom set sitting lifeless except for a motionless body and a chimpanzee who seems to be the culprit of the carnage.
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After the relatively modest narratives of his first two movies, Nope ups the scale to an astronomical degree—to a near blockbuster size.
Interestingly, the closest analog to Peele's career thus far is Steven Spielberg, who created the modern-day blockbuster. Coincidentally—or not since nothing seems to be a coincidence with him—Nope is Peele's Jaws. Or at least an homage to it and the many other summer blockbusters that followed. Though the movie is packed full of references from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Jurassic Park to Twister and War of the Worlds to Signs and Creature from the Black Lagoon it is every bit as original and electrifying as Get Out and Us. Watching it felt the way I imagined audiences felt the first time watching any of those classics—at least if my shrieking friend next to me was any indication.
Though the movie pulls from a lot of corners, Nope is another story of humans and the curiosity—and invasiveness—that plagues them. Think Creature from the Black Lagoon, which inspired Jaws. At the center of the movie are siblings OJ (Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer), the co-owners of a ranch in California that specializes in horses for entertainment. Following the sudden death of their father, a reluctant OJ runs the ranch while Emerald dreams of doing something bigger.
That something bigger reveals itself to be really big when the pair become convinced that a UFO has been visiting their ranch to abduct their horses.
One night, all electrical devices on the ranch suddenly stop working. And right as the lights dim, an unearthly sound blankets the vast landscape. Right then, a mysterious cloud produces an isolated tornado to snatch up one of the horses. Seeing a way out of financial ruin, OJ and Emerald set out to capture evidence of the phenomenon with the help of electronics store employee Angel (Brandon Perea). After a genuinely frightening night with fake and real frights, the trio determines that the UFO is sitting in a cloud perched just over a ridge by the ranch waiting for its opportunity to take its prey. Realizing they're in over their heads, they enlist the help of cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott) who dreams of capturing the impossible.
The comparisons to Jaws are clear. A ragtag group of locals on a mission to “capture” an unpredictable, menacing, and deadly wild animal. OJ and Emerald are equivalent to Police Chief Martin Brody, Angel to oceanographer Matt Hooper, and Antlers to fisherman Quint. There's even a scene where Antlers quotes the song “One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater” in a tongue-in-cheek homage to Quint's famous USS Indianapolis monologue. But just when you think you know where Nope is going, it finds a way to surprise you—like with a subplot involving Jupe Park (Steven Yeun) and an infamous incident on the sitcom he starred in as a child involving the cold open chimpanzee.
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While all of Peele's movies have been horror, Nope might be the most frightening to date.
Though there is comedy to cut through some of the tension, Peele steps on the gas and doesn't let up for the 135-minute running time. The creeping sense of dread, real danger, and suspense kept my pulse racing the entire time. In particular, a stellar sequence—the best of the movie—that sees the UFO attacking the ranch in an action setpiece mashup of War of the Worlds and Jurassic Park may have taken a few years off of my life. It highlights the movie's immersive and dominating sound design—which more than deserves attention from the Oscars.
There are twists and turns in the narrative, but what keeps you engaged is the movie's increasingly intense setpieces that tie together threads of horror, sci-fi, action, and comedy perfectly. Nope is Peele firing on absolutely every cylinder masterfully using Michael Abels' cinematic score, Hoyte van Hoytema's sweeping cinematography, and Nicholas Monsour's editing to hit you with setpieces that feel equal parts grand, intimate, and dangerous.
With Nope, Peele weaponizes the tropes and iconography of summer blockbusters to criticize both the genre and our relationship to spectacle.
What are the themes in Nope?
And despite the threat that the UFO poses, the OJ and Emmerald do everything in their power to capture it on video. Despite its danger, they can't look away. Perhaps the theme isn't as devastating as those of race and class that were explored in Get Out and Us, but Peele commits to exploring it just as deeply.
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Nope is an imperfect movie, but its ambition vastly outweighs any nitpicks with the plot or characters.
Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer give wholly committed performances that feel lived in. The characters are defined by their past baggage. Palmer, in particular, eats every scene with her emotional and expressive physicality. However, I wish that more time was dedicated to the siblings and their relationship to make the movie's payoff all the more impactful. In general, I think the characters are underdeveloped. Whether purposefully or by design I'm not sure. At the very least, I was charmed by them but didn't feel the emotional attachment I felt to Kaluuya's Chris in Get Out or Lupita Nyong'o's Adelaide in Us.
Nope in itself is a spectacle that deserves to be seen and heard on the big screen.
In his copped-and-screwed version of a summer blockbuster, Jordan Peele makes us question why we can't look away. Why are we so easily drawn in by a spectacle—both on screen and in the real world? Why is it so hard to look away from disaster? In the opening shot of Nope, there is a curious phenomenon happening amongst the carnage. You might notice it, you might not. With that shot, Peele is asking us why we're not looking deeper? Why are we so distracted by tragedy that we can't see the wonder around it? Interestingly, it was impossible to stop looking at Nope on the screen. It's a spectacle through and through. The movie isn't challenging us to look away, but instead look deeper. You might be surprised by what you find.
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Hey! I'm Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I'm also a Tomatometer-approved critic.
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Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.