The way most critics are raving about "Nope" makes me wonder if I've been the victim of an elaborate prank where I was shown a different film than what they have been watching.
Because "Nope" is, at best, adequate -- a watchable sci-fi action picture that, if it weren't for the fact that it's directed by an Oscar-winning red-hot director and has a budget of roughly $60 mil and stars an Oscar-winning actor, would not be out of place among the myriad of B-movies that litter the virtual shelves of Netflix or Prime Video.
First, the good stuff: the film looks gorgeous. Lots of beautiful shots of cloudy skies and spectacular night and day vistas. It was shot on Imax cameras by a master (Hoyte Van Hoytema, Christopher Nolan's regular cinematographer), and it shows. And the dark, foreboding imagery helps Jordan Peele build some effective tension during the first half of the film, when the audience (and the film's characters) still don't know exactly what's going on and what exactly is threatening them.
But then the film devolves into a mess where everyone (including the main antagonist) behaves illogically because that's what the plot requires them to do in order to hit all the subtextual marks that Jordan Peele wants them to deliver. And therein lies the biggest problem with the film: it's a very unsubtle 'message' movie, and Jordan Peele, really wants you to get what he's trying to say, to the point of driving the point home with a hammer, over and over.
Without going into spoiler territory, the film's plot is a not-so-veiled metaphor for the state of entertainment in our society. All the characters have some sort of connection to the entertainment industry in some form and/or are meant to symbolize a facet of it: the protagonists are two African American siblings, one of whom runs the family business, a ranch providing horses for Hollywood movies; the other is a wannabe performer/entertainer.
Their business is dying: animals are being supplanted by CGI, and horses can be unpredictable on set and hard to control, and therefore replaceable. Any parallel with the perception of people of color in the same industry is of course not accidental. Then you have the kid who works at (now defunct) Fry's Electronics and is all about digital videos and streaming content. His name is Angel, probably because calling him YouTube or TikTok would have been a tad too transparent. Then there's the the grizzled, obsessed old filmmaker (played by Michael Wincott, your go-to guy when you want someone who looks gruff and curmudgeonly, down to the 'I just swallowed drain cleaner' hoarse voice) who is disillusioned with the drivel he's forced to shoot nowadays and is ready to roll with his trusty hand-cranked non-digital film camera and to sacrifice everything to the altar of cinematic art.
We also have the Asian cowboy slash circus entertainer (Steven Yeun) who suffered a traumatic event as a child actor which left him with deep unhealed psychological scars simmering under the surface, which all stereotypical ex-child actors are supposed to have and which of course will lead him to make horribly wrong, life-changing decisions. And, in what is the most transparent cypher in film packed to the gills with them, you have a TMZ reporter that is not even given a name or a face: he just shows up at some point on an electric motorcycle wearing a reflective helmet (get it? He's just mirroring society's obsession with capturing celebrities' life! Hoo boy!) and expensive cameras. And of course we all know how Hollywood feels about paparazzi, so if you can't guess what's going to happen to him, you will love this film unironically.
Nobody in the film behaves the way a regular human being would. They do things because Jordan Peele needs them to deliver a message to the audience, logic and common sense be damned. I'm not even sure the film takes place in the real world, since all the events seem to involve only this microcosm of characters and nobody else. It's like a Beckett play, except that the stage is a vast valley in the California desert inhabited only by a handful of people and the outside world doesn't exist and is somehow unaware of the very visible and bizarre events taking place.
Imagine if Jaws took place in the California desert and the shark had a message against Hollywood and showbiz consumerism painted in bright neon letters on its side, and Brody, Quint and Hooper were replaced by much less competent characters whose purpose is not to kill the man-eating menace but to take pictures of it so they can sell it to Oprah and become rich, and you'll have a pretty good idea of the basic plot of "Nope" (and the Jaws comparisons don't end there -- you'll see what I mean at the end of the film).
As a scary movie, Nope is pretty devoid of actual scares (Peele has to resort to the oldest trick in the book, the 'jump scare', in a couple of occasions). It's also surprising tame in the blood and gore department (most of the carnage takes place offscreen).
The talented cast does what they can with the material. Daniel Kaluuya's OJ is nicely understated: a no-nonsense guy who seems to react to most of the craziness around him with a shrug or by saying "nope" (of course). Kiki Palmer is fine as his sister, though in typically cliched fashion, she suddenly switches from "shrieking, terrified woman" to "resourceful heroine" when the plot demands it. But they can't save the film because they have to go through the motions of a plot that becomes increasingly preposterous (the plan that they devise in the third act makes no sense the more you think about it) Nope continues the downward trajectory of Jordan Peele after Get Out and Us. The former, still a modern masterpiece, succeeded because the metaphorical subtext didn't get in the way of the plot: even if you completely ignored the clear references to slavery and race relationships, it still worked perfectly as a basic thriller.
Us was where we started getting hints Peele's ambition might exceed his grasp (it was deliciously creepy and well executed, but the basic concept of a race of "alternate" underground dwelling doppelgangers was too bonkers and forced to work) And now we have Nope, where nothing makes sense outside of its function as a delivery system for Peele's criticism of Hollywood, its treatment of minorities, and our society's total dependence on entertainment at all costs.
I've seen critics make favorable comparison between Jordan Peele and Steven Spielberg (mainly due to the very evident influence of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the aforementioned "Jaws), but a more apt comparison would be with M. Night Shyamalan, another director who hit the jackpot early in his career with a terrific movie and then proceeded to squander his potential with increasingly ambitious and less effective muddled message films.
In many ways, Nope is Jordan Peele's "Signs". Still enjoyable in parts, but too self-conscious for its own good and a far cry from the promise shown with Get Out.
Because "Nope" is, at best, adequate -- a watchable sci-fi action picture that, if it weren't for the fact that it's directed by an Oscar-winning red-hot director and has a budget of roughly $60 mil and stars an Oscar-winning actor, would not be out of place among the myriad of B-movies that litter the virtual shelves of Netflix or Prime Video.
First, the good stuff: the film looks gorgeous. Lots of beautiful shots of cloudy skies and spectacular night and day vistas. It was shot on Imax cameras by a master (Hoyte Van Hoytema, Christopher Nolan's regular cinematographer), and it shows. And the dark, foreboding imagery helps Jordan Peele build some effective tension during the first half of the film, when the audience (and the film's characters) still don't know exactly what's going on and what exactly is threatening them.
But then the film devolves into a mess where everyone (including the main antagonist) behaves illogically because that's what the plot requires them to do in order to hit all the subtextual marks that Jordan Peele wants them to deliver. And therein lies the biggest problem with the film: it's a very unsubtle 'message' movie, and Jordan Peele, really wants you to get what he's trying to say, to the point of driving the point home with a hammer, over and over.
Without going into spoiler territory, the film's plot is a not-so-veiled metaphor for the state of entertainment in our society. All the characters have some sort of connection to the entertainment industry in some form and/or are meant to symbolize a facet of it: the protagonists are two African American siblings, one of whom runs the family business, a ranch providing horses for Hollywood movies; the other is a wannabe performer/entertainer.
Their business is dying: animals are being supplanted by CGI, and horses can be unpredictable on set and hard to control, and therefore replaceable. Any parallel with the perception of people of color in the same industry is of course not accidental. Then you have the kid who works at (now defunct) Fry's Electronics and is all about digital videos and streaming content. His name is Angel, probably because calling him YouTube or TikTok would have been a tad too transparent. Then there's the the grizzled, obsessed old filmmaker (played by Michael Wincott, your go-to guy when you want someone who looks gruff and curmudgeonly, down to the 'I just swallowed drain cleaner' hoarse voice) who is disillusioned with the drivel he's forced to shoot nowadays and is ready to roll with his trusty hand-cranked non-digital film camera and to sacrifice everything to the altar of cinematic art.
We also have the Asian cowboy slash circus entertainer (Steven Yeun) who suffered a traumatic event as a child actor which left him with deep unhealed psychological scars simmering under the surface, which all stereotypical ex-child actors are supposed to have and which of course will lead him to make horribly wrong, life-changing decisions. And, in what is the most transparent cypher in film packed to the gills with them, you have a TMZ reporter that is not even given a name or a face: he just shows up at some point on an electric motorcycle wearing a reflective helmet (get it? He's just mirroring society's obsession with capturing celebrities' life! Hoo boy!) and expensive cameras. And of course we all know how Hollywood feels about paparazzi, so if you can't guess what's going to happen to him, you will love this film unironically.
Nobody in the film behaves the way a regular human being would. They do things because Jordan Peele needs them to deliver a message to the audience, logic and common sense be damned. I'm not even sure the film takes place in the real world, since all the events seem to involve only this microcosm of characters and nobody else. It's like a Beckett play, except that the stage is a vast valley in the California desert inhabited only by a handful of people and the outside world doesn't exist and is somehow unaware of the very visible and bizarre events taking place.
Imagine if Jaws took place in the California desert and the shark had a message against Hollywood and showbiz consumerism painted in bright neon letters on its side, and Brody, Quint and Hooper were replaced by much less competent characters whose purpose is not to kill the man-eating menace but to take pictures of it so they can sell it to Oprah and become rich, and you'll have a pretty good idea of the basic plot of "Nope" (and the Jaws comparisons don't end there -- you'll see what I mean at the end of the film).
As a scary movie, Nope is pretty devoid of actual scares (Peele has to resort to the oldest trick in the book, the 'jump scare', in a couple of occasions). It's also surprising tame in the blood and gore department (most of the carnage takes place offscreen).
The talented cast does what they can with the material. Daniel Kaluuya's OJ is nicely understated: a no-nonsense guy who seems to react to most of the craziness around him with a shrug or by saying "nope" (of course). Kiki Palmer is fine as his sister, though in typically cliched fashion, she suddenly switches from "shrieking, terrified woman" to "resourceful heroine" when the plot demands it. But they can't save the film because they have to go through the motions of a plot that becomes increasingly preposterous (the plan that they devise in the third act makes no sense the more you think about it) Nope continues the downward trajectory of Jordan Peele after Get Out and Us. The former, still a modern masterpiece, succeeded because the metaphorical subtext didn't get in the way of the plot: even if you completely ignored the clear references to slavery and race relationships, it still worked perfectly as a basic thriller.
Us was where we started getting hints Peele's ambition might exceed his grasp (it was deliciously creepy and well executed, but the basic concept of a race of "alternate" underground dwelling doppelgangers was too bonkers and forced to work) And now we have Nope, where nothing makes sense outside of its function as a delivery system for Peele's criticism of Hollywood, its treatment of minorities, and our society's total dependence on entertainment at all costs.
I've seen critics make favorable comparison between Jordan Peele and Steven Spielberg (mainly due to the very evident influence of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the aforementioned "Jaws), but a more apt comparison would be with M. Night Shyamalan, another director who hit the jackpot early in his career with a terrific movie and then proceeded to squander his potential with increasingly ambitious and less effective muddled message films.
In many ways, Nope is Jordan Peele's "Signs". Still enjoyable in parts, but too self-conscious for its own good and a far cry from the promise shown with Get Out.