Review of Nope (2022) by Theomancer — 22 Jul 2022

I absolutely love sci-fi, but I don't love horror — but when I saw this was from critically-acclaimed director Jordan Peele, I decided to give this one a shot. From a filmmaking perspective, the "craft" of this film is great. It has fantastic cinematography, great sound, great visuals and effects, solid pacing, great bread-crumb sprinkles that eventually come to fruition full-circle by the end of the film, etc. The "nuts and bolts" of the film are great.

Unfortunately, I think just the actual "core" bread-and-butter of the film, from a substance and content and story perspective, just isn't really great. Thankfully (for me), it wasn't even remotely scary as a suspense/thriller/"horror" movie, either. (I should add that while I don't love proper horror films, I absolutely love suspense and thrillers.).

Interestingly, I do think the allegories and "messaging" angle of the film are solid. This can be seen through various flashback scenes, and ideas surrounding humanity's relationship to nature, etc. There are also some little nuggets for folks who've been following the recent "UAP" conversations in news and politics, as well (leaked Navy pilot videos published by the New York Times, discovery of a secret Pentagon program studying UFOs, different rival theories about their possible explanation and origin, etc.).

I really wanted to love the movie, but unfortunately it was just "okay." Fantastic in the nuts-and-bolts, but pretty "meh" as far as the substance. Really loved the characters, though.