Nope (Mini-Review)

Nope is Jordan Peele's third movie. Otis "OJ" Haywood Junior and Emerald "Em" Haywood end up inheriting their family's failing horse ranch once their father dies under mysterious circumstances. It seems like they will have to abandon the ranch until OJ happens upon a UFO one night. Under Em's advice, they decide to make money from taking pictures to prove the UFO's existence. Nope was released in 2022. It was directed by Jordan Peele. It stars Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, and Brandon Perea.

I like to get my reviews out soon after I've finished watching a movie or reading a book. This so that I'm able to give a sense of how I felt walking out of a theater or turning the last page of a book. However, Nope is different as I saw it on the day of its release but wasn't able to write a review of it out until now. This will probably only affect me but I decided to give a warning anyways.

Before I entered the movie theater I had a couple of mental volumes containing various fan theories. I was pleasantly surprised that they were nearly all wrong because the trailers lied to us. There is a UFO but the trailers hid a huge subplot that has ramifications for one character. I love trailers that give just enough away to leave the audiences longing for something but not enough to know what's actually going on. This is different than trailers presenting viewers with a completely different movie such as in the case of It Comes at Night (2017). That movie is awesome but isn't a creature feature.

The familial relationship between OJ and Em is paramount to the film. He loves the ranch and likes the job of providing horses for movies. This is true even when things aren't going well financially for him. The death of his father shoved him into a big leadership position that he didn't seem ready for. Em has a life away from the ranch and only stays for so long to try and catch a picture of the UFO. As the movie goes on, though, she seems to develop more love for her childhood home.

On a surface level the movie really hammers home that you have to respect animals. Near the beginning OJ loses a gig because someone spooks Lucky. This causes the horse the to kick a person behind him. This could have been helped if the crew actually took time to respect the horse, OJ wasn't so nervous, or Em wasn't off somewhere else when OJ needed her the most. I just realized that this does paint Lucky and OJ as being in similar situations. Both don't want to be there and are too nervous to act as they need to.

The UFO is a character in its own right. Everyone has their own ideas what should be done with it and they don't care about what the UFO actually is. Ricky "Jupe" Park, former child actor and current owner of Jupiter's Claim, wants to use the UFO to give a traumatic moment from his childhood a happy ending. OJ and Em look at the UFO as purely a way to make a lot of money.

I would highly recommend Nope to fans of Jordan Peele's other movies. I would also highly recommend Nope to science fiction fans. I would finally recommend Nope to those looking for a science fiction movie that isn't as flashy as Marvel films.