Nope review
Nope is the latest horror movie from writer & director Jordan Peele. Image courtesy of Universal.
Two ranch-owning siblings, with the help of a tech salesman and a renowned cinematographer, attempt to capture and sell video evidence of an unidentified flying object.
This was always going to be a hard one, which is why I specifically waited two days after watching Nope to write this review. On one hand, Jordan Peele continues to be one of the most daring and experimental filmmakers of the new film brats generation. He's the only one that hasn't made a movie for Marvel yet and he has some wildly original ideas that he's able to make on a beautifully cinematic scale. He’s also one of the only people whose name has become synonymous with a must-see event viewing, which is something that so many filmmakers have a hard time doing right now.
While this movie has some interesting potential, the ultimate final product is something that may be a little too ambitious for its own good. fIn comparison to his first two films, which had such unique and rich identities in and of themselves, this film just doesn't seem to be offering anything new. The number one thing this film is playing with is the idea of entertainment as exploitation, and how the all-consuming nature of people's drive for recognition overpowers their better judgment.
The problem is that there’s a massive subplot that feels like it goes nowhere. It’s another situation where there are too many symbols that don’t really serve the plot, merely acting as metaphors for the sake of being metaphors. This causes a large portion of the film to come off as lofty, weighty, and borderns on pretentious. It feels like Peele was so focused on the imagery at play and using the characters as devices through which to translate said imagery that he forgot to make them interesting or compelling. But the strangest thing is that it still feels so weird to call this movie a miss because it is so fascinating and different from anything else out there right now. It’s the constant struggle of film watching, grappling with something that’s too familiar or too different.
Nope review. Image courtesy of Universal.
