--OJ Haywood Jr., Nope
From showing Nahum 3:6 at the start to the slow burn horror to a genuinely unique plot reveal, Nope has a lot of ambition behind it. Jordan Peele's previous film Us was so excellent that it was always unlikely for Nope to match or surpass it in spite of this. Indeed, this latest offering from the director is not as focused or as philosophically penetrating as Us, but when the second out of the three movies he directed was so wonderfully executed, falling short of Us is by no means damning for Nope. What Peele has crafted here is more of a slow burn drama than an explicit horror movie for most of its runtime. Mystery, discovery, and suspense are the primary components, and without delving into specifics until the intellectual content section, I will say that the most horror-oriented parts actually are red herrings or seemingly self-aware acknowledgment of genre tropes only used to separate Nope from more conventional horror storytelling.
Production Values
Nope does not need an incredibly diverse set of locations or a relentless, obvious CGI extraterrestrial to have a distinct aesthetic identity. Mostly taking place in the same handful of areas, the film has some great wide shots of the sky at night and during the day, with the final sequence of the movie having a heightened visual uniqueness--but if I was to clarify why, I would be spoiling a major detail! It is up to Daniel Kaluuya (Black Panther, Get Out), Keke Palmer (Scream), Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead, Invincible), and Brandon Perea to carry the story amidst the superb cinematography, balancing the mixture of comedy and drama that never progresses to the point of conflicting tones. Kaluuya plays his character OJ as a reserved person with a sarcastic sense of humor that occasionally slips out in stressful situations, while Palmer plays his sister in a much more outwardly expressive way that lets the pair have a close sibling relationship despite their significant personality differences. Steven Yeun has a far more limited role, but his character is an important way to explore the themes of the film, albeit one that could have been leaned into more heavily, and Perea's Angel brings a mixture of humor and sincerity that makes him a great secondary protagonist.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
OJ Haywood Jr. sees his father, a horse handler for film projects, suddenly struck by objects falling from the sky, an event eventually followed by strange electrical power outages on the property. OJ and his sister Emerald grow suspicious that a UFO is stalking the area, and they attempt to film the extraterrestrial so they can gain money and renown. Joined by a willing Fry's Electronics employee who sets up a new camera system at the ranch, they find that a specific cloud has not moved in months. This UFO proves difficult to get footage of, leading the Haywood siblings to eventually try very unconventional measures to hopefully get photographic or video evidence of the alien presence.
Intellectual Content
By far the most clever choice made in setting up the story is making the UFO not a spacecraft, although it certainly looks like one at first, but a giant, living being that eats and hides as it pleases. It is at least far closer to being Lovecraftian than plenty of other alien creatures in cinema that are stupidly exaggerated as highly Lovecraftian, including the xenomorph of the Alien franchise (that anyone would ever think that an extraterrestrial animal is similar to Cthulhu or the deity Azathoth is pathetic, not that the xenomorph has no other philosophical themes associated with it), especially in its final form at the end of the movie. Despite its size, OJ decides to treat it like he might other animals and refuse to engage in behavior he expects it to interpret as hostile or challenging. He refrains from looking directly at it and hopes to use this to his advantage in visually documenting the creature. Between the real nature of the alien and how OJ handles it, the frequent role of horses in the story, and periodic flashbacks to a day when a chimpanzee attacked its human costars while filming a sitcom, the clear philosophical focus of Nope is how humans treat animals. Some are shown as not caring enough to take basic precautions, and others strive to have a peace, even an illusory peace, with the entity.
However, the entire subplot with the chimpanzee killing humans is only loosely related to the broader themes of how humans interact with animas and could have been fully removed without hurting the film on any level. This is not all that could have been better developed. The Bible verse displayed at the very beginning, Nahum 3:6, is not integrated into the story particularly well. In context, the verse is about God's hostile reaction to the sins of Nineveh in which he promises to inflict punishment on a city compared to a prostitute and sorceress who is responsible for unjust deaths and enslavements. In the film, the only thing that is loosely but specifically connected to the concept behind the verse, in which God comparing his coming judgment to pelting the personified Nineveh with filth and treat it with contempt, would be the UFO pelting the ground with objects like keys that it does not consume. Lastly, while simply having a character of a particular race do something blatantly stupid is not racist in itself as long as the intention is not racist (though constantly having characters in cinema fall into erroneous stereotypes based on their race is still racist), there is one scene in particular where a white character is so hell-bent on a pointless and reckless goal that the idiocy of their motivation is comedic. There is a trope, perhaps not as mainstream as the asinine storytelling trend of killing black characters first in horror movies (which films like the original Predator avoid), or presenting white characters as foolish because they are white. No one is stupid or impulsive because their skin is white, black, or any other shade, but it seems as if Peele might be stereotyping white people as people who eagerly or cluelessly sprint towards danger, which, if that is the case, is itself stupid and hypocritical in light of his emphasis on racism in Get Out.
Conclusion
Not as artistically and thematically deep as Us but still a competent film in its own right, Nope does manage to introduce a rather original plot element and stand on its performances and cinematography well before this revelation comes to light. Here, the themes are clearer than they were in the last movie Jordan Peele directed before it, but there are also parts of the film that are less essential than they could have been, such as those pertaining to Steven Yeun's character. A strong directorial vision shines through all the same and elevates Nope to a unique place in the horror and science fiction genres. People hoping for the same strangeness and experimentation in Get Out and Us will find them here, just not always to the same extent. When Nope is the lesser of three films, though, that means that the other two of Peele's directorial titles are rather masterful. A less incredible but very strong film is still a strong way to follow his earlier movies.
Content:
1. VIolence: Blood is shown in scenes such as where a chimpanzee has attacked humans and is even shown raining down from the sky.
2. Profanity: "Fuck" and "shit" are used throughout.
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