Nope

An amazing atmosphere and so many original ideas... I'm glad that they still make (and get into cinemas) films like this that are probably impossible to fully understand at first, but which have such charm that you want to watch them again and only fully understand them afterwards. Original plot, realistic story, great (and well acted) characters, a sense of constant mystery… It's not horror, because then Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which Peele combines with Jaws, Signs and more, would have to be horror. I haven't seen a more original design of an alien "something" since Arrival, a number of scenes are without exaggeration unforgettable and I look forward to seeing them again. I think Nope is in many ways on par with Christopher Nolan's films, and if Nolan or Dennis Villeneuve had made it instead of Peele, the ratings here would be quite different. (09/03/2022)

Jordan Peele has once again proven that he's an intriguing director, just like he did with Get Out. In Nope, he delves into themes that no one else has touched, blending a unique black perspective with mysticism, aliens, and a Western vibe. Sounds like a mess? Just watch Nope. It might seem crazy, and it is, but it's an atmospherically genius kind of crazy, with stunning cinematography. I haven't been so captivated by shots of clouds in a long time. The film is filled with more WTF moments than you can imagine, and its ending is fantastic — though it does dip into a Hollywood vibe just when you think it's entirely anti-Hollywood. For those moments and the riveting conclusion, this movie truly deserves your attention. I haven't watched TV with such interest and curiosity in a long time. (05/24/2024)

NOPE, or Not Of Planet Earth, arrived and with it a Jordan Peele we don't know. Where his previous films, Us and Get Out, relied on a central idea, a social-racial subtext and an attempt to shock, here we get a full-blown sci-fi flick with small overlapping themes (people's fascination with the "spectacles" around them, the quest to tame animals, the domination of nature by predators, the uncompromising Hollywood industry and its treatment of actors and filmmakers as trash, and other themes less visible...). This makes me find it quite amusing that with Us and Get Out conventional viewers grumbled that they wanted a horror film and got social criticism, and here again they grumble that they wanted "classic Jordan" and got science fiction. Whatever, haters gonna hate and they’ll always find an excuse. But about the film itself. The duo of Peele and Daniel Kaluuya are a perfect fit for each other, as they've proven once before, and the same is true here, and the cinematography is great (NOPE is the first horror film to be shot in IMAX format), the sound design is even better and only gives the film its full status in the sci-fi genre. The central idea is admittedly familiar to everyone at its core (UFOs, right?), but it is cleverly differentiated in the details, the rules that are set, and also by the shape of the flying saucer. We discover in the course of the film that it is not actually a classic UFO as we are used to. The first third is a decent start, the second third a complete immersion into the plot and then the final part is an unstoppable, action, blood and tension-packed ride that goes full speed ahead until the end and shows us that Peele knows how to do it. The two-hour running time is not boring at all, the acting is something to behold. I have a small problem with the fact that the trailer promised certain elements that the film shrewdly avoided and as a result not only failed to deliver, but didn't even lean into them at all (I won't spoil specific scenes), but all in all, I'm satisfied. I was looking forward to a "classic Peele", which I didn't get, but in return I was served a spectacular sci-fi flick with an original monster that will please everyone. (08/18/2022)

For viewers who are aware of Peele’s filmmaking talent and screenwriting limitations, Nope is exactly the kind of nonsense indicated by the trailer. As a director, he can grippingly shoot practically any scene. But when those scenes only hint at something for a hundred minutes, and some of them (the Asian and the chimpanzee) have no meaningful relevance to the already thin story, it’s merely pretentious bullshitting. Peele’s unusual mixing of genre motifs (in this case, sci-fi horror and westerns) can come across as bold and original, but in a film that is supposed to be scary while balancing on the edge of parody, the creative vision gets lost. In terms of execution, Nope is somewhere between Get Out, which was based on a brilliant idea, and Us, which was ridiculous bullshit. (08/28/2022)

Siblings OJ and Emerald are struggling with a failing farm, their own relationship, and now with something hiding in the clouds, and as it soon turns out, it's pretty damn dangerous. Only how do you expose this thing, which is good at hiding and doesn't like to let witnesses in, to the world? And how to survive it? Jordan Peele delivers a science fiction film that doesn't quite work in the first half, and he as a director doesn't quite manage to build the tension as well as he might have liked. But he makes up for it all with the final act, when the humans and the mysterious something from the clouds have a fair fight. The closer we get to the end, the smarter and more entertaining Nope gets. And it looks really beautiful. But Peele still can't do real fear and terror. (08/17/2022)