By: Andrew Wing

Nope is a 2022 American science fiction horror film written, directed, and co-produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us) under his Monkeypaw Productions banner. It stars Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah), Keke Palmer (Akeelah and the Bee, Hustlers), Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead, Minari), Brandon Perea (The OA), Michael Wincott (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Crow), Wrenn Schmidt (For All Mankind, Boardwalk Empire), and Keith David (The Thing, They Live). In the film, two ranch-owning siblings (Kaluuya and Palmer), with the help of a tech salesman (Perea) and a renowned cinematographer (Wincott), attempt to capture and sell video evidence of an unidentified flying object.

Peele officially announced his then-untitled third directorial film in November 2019. Palmer and Kaluuya joined in February 2020, with Yeun being cast the next month, and Peele revealed the title in July 2021. Filming took place during fall 2021 in northern Los Angeles county, before wrapping in late November.

The film premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on July 18, 2022, and was released in the United States on July 22, 2022, by Universal Pictures.

THE GOOD

The time has finally come! Ask anyone close to me, and they will tell you that Nope was easily my most anticipated film of 2022. The number of times I watched the incredibly ambiguous trailer, and forced those close to me to watch it just so I could hear Daniel Kaluuya perfectly utter the phrase “what’s a bad miracle?” was probably unhealthy. I mean how could I not be excited? It is the third directorial film from Jordan Peele who this time was taking on my favorite personal genre, science fiction, and it also had him reuniting with Kaluuya who was the star of his 2017 debut film Get Out. The hype for this film was absurd and I saw it as soon as I could, so the question is, did it live up to the hype? Keep reading to find out!

Without any hesitation, the answer is yes. It did live up to the hype. Jordan Peele man. The guy is a truly talented filmmaker and after Get Out in 2017, Us in 2019, and now Nope, he hasn’t even come close to missing. What he has done in the past five years is remarkable, and that is why he is already through three films, one of my, and I’m sure many others, favorite directors working today. It is just his pure originality when it comes to his storytelling that is so unique nowadays when so much of what we consume comes from other IP, and you can tell he has a true love for the horror genre. The other thing I love about Peele is his ambition as a filmmaker and storyteller. He is not just one of the most exciting filmmakers we have today, but he is one we truly need. He means something to us as cinephiles as all of his movies mean something and say something, and that was exactly what he did with Nope in his third outing as writer/director.

Peele’s direction in Nope was honestly flawless in my opinion. The way he crafted this film was amazing. It was a spectacle to tell you the truth and it honestly felt like I was watching a cinematic event. He clearly had a strong grasp on both the sci-fi and horror genres just with the way he paid homage to previous legendary films. I’ve already mentioned that I love my science fiction, but I really am not too big on horror just because nowadays it has become so gore-based. But with Peele in this, he focuses more on the supernatural horror which I think is scarier, and more than that, he does horror in a way that folds society in on itself and makes us look at how scary we are as human beings. And Jordan Peele has mastered that and does it better than any other director out there. Also, as the director, he was able to test some of the best talents in the industry with very heady and highbrow concepts, and we really see those with his script.

First things first, this script is wholly original. Now I’m sure some people might have a few problems with the script just because of how the film ends which I will touch on later in the review, but as a whole, this script was magnificent. It was full of tension, and this dark and eerie vibe that made your skin crawl, but it also contained a lot of humor and just the perfect amount of social commentary. All in all, Jordan Peele is the fucking man, and I would love to see him get Oscar nominations for both his direction and his original screenplay because he deserves it.

Jordan Peele will definitely get the most praise for Nope, and deservingly so, but goddamn are all of the performances across the board amazing! I never thought I’d say this in a movie that starred Daniel Kaluuya, but I have got to start with Keke Palmer because she was the absolute standout of the film for me. Yes, that’s right I said Keke Palmer, the actress that most of us know from her days as a child actress for both her roles on Nickelodeon and also some stuff on the Disney channel. But she has grown up since then, and with her performance in this, I’d say she is about to break out as a star. I was just buying everything she was selling here. She was funny, dramatic, and her chemistry with Kaluuya was phenomenal. I honestly can’t see any other actress in her role which is crazy to say, but she carried this film, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Now onto the guy that rightfully deserves the first billing he got here, and that is Daniel Kaluuya. Kaluuya is so damn good in this, and while it might not have been as good as his performance in Get Out, it was such a completely different performance and that is arguably more impressive. He plays the character OJ, a very shy and reserved person who just keeps to himself, and I was blown away by what Kaluuya did with his character. Honestly though, and I don’t think I’m crazy in saying this, but Kaluuya might be a top five actor in Hollywood at the moment. I mean he is definitely a top five favorite actor of mine, but who in the past five years has put out as many incredible performances as he has? Maybe Adam Driver, and I couldn’t resist because he is my favorite actor, but from Get Out to Queen & Slim, to Judas and the Black Messiah which earned him what I think is the first of many Oscars for him, to now this, Kaluuya is an absolute superstar and I cannot wait to see what is next for him.

Kaluuya and Palmer definitely were the best of the bunch when it came to the performances in Nope, but there are so many other supporting performances that need to get mentioned. Steven Yeun was fantastic as he gave us his most confident performance I think of to date as the sort of secondhand antagonist in the film. And I know I said Keke Palmer might break out as a star after this, but the same can be said for Brandon Perea, an actor I had never seen before, who played the tech salesman, Angel. Perea was pretty much the comic relief character alongside Palmer here, and he was really funny, but there was something else about his performance that just made his character so great and just someone you wanted more of. And to finish on the performances before we get to the technical elements of Nope, I have to touch on Michael Wincott’s performance. Similar to Perea, I had never heard or seen him, but he crushed it, and boy oh boy does he have an intimidating voice.

In conclusion, being the cinephile that I am who appreciates all aspects of film, I need to highlight Nope’s technical elements, specifically the music and the cinematography. First with the music that was done by Michael Abels. Abels did the music for Peele’s previous two films, and just like in those, the music was great here. The music really enhanced the dark and eerie feeling I briefly mentioned earlier, yet it somehow felt grander and larger than any other score he has ever composed. I just hope he and Peele work together on all of Peele’s future films because they just get it. Oh, and speaking of Peele and his collaborators, he needs to keep working with the film’s editor Nicholas Monsour because the film was perfectly edited and flowed very nicely.

Now onto the cinematography which Hoyte van Hoytema did. I am such a sucker for some good cinematography, and while Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049, 1917) is the absolute GOAT, van Hoytema is right up there with the best of them. Other films he has shot include Her, Ad Astra, and three Christopher Nolan films: Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Tenet, and Nope is in my opinion one of his best works. I am no cinematography expert, but I’d assume it’s a challenge to shoot something that is not there but is there in post-production thanks to the visual effects, which were outstanding by the way in Nope, but it really felt like van Hoytema was just shooting UFOs, and that combined with the way he shot the beautiful Agua Dulce desert in northern LA have me wanting him to get a Best Cinematography nomination so freaking bad.

THE BAD

News flash: I loved Nope. As I said, it lived up to the hype, and I really got everything I wanted out of this film. I won’t listen to anyone who calls it bad, but I will say there are definitely some areas where one could critique. The first is the fact that this just wasn’t as good or rather as impactful as Peele’s first two films, both of which I would give very high ratings. However, the biggest critique the film has was the ending and how it wrapped up. I was fine with how things ended, to tell the truth, but I’d be lying if I said it wrapped up just how I wanted it to.

Also, after reading a ton of other reviews on the film, I have consistently seen people blasting the film’s subplot that deals with Steven Yeun’s character’s backstory. It was definitely weird, and maybe it didn’t make perfect sense and you had to wait a while to know more about it, but I was able to put the pieces together and see how it connected to the story as a whole. Lastly, it also was probably a good fifteen minutes longer than it needed to be as it had some unnecessary scenes. All that said, I still ate this movie up, I cannot wait to rewatch it, and I will spend the next six months praying that it gets a Best Picture nomination!

THE VERDICT

In his third outing as writer-director, the brilliant Jordan Peele’s Nope is a sci-fi horror that is an absolute spectacle that needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Sure, maybe it doesn’t hit the same marks as his previous two films, but his ambitious direction and beautifully original screenplay that is full of horrifying, yet intriguing concepts and metaphors on today’s society make me say this is one of 2022’s best thus far.

It also features another great Daniel Kaluuya performance, and one from Keke Palmer that absolutely stole the show. Aside from that, the technicals are all top-notch, from the VFX to Hoyte van Hoytema’s mind-blowing cinematography, to the terrifying creative sound work, and a breathtaking score from Michael Abels.