Review | Nope movie review: Get Out and Us director Jordan Peele’s third feature, a horror sci-fi production, is one of the great studio movies of 2022
- Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya star in a tale about aliens in California that mixes the science fiction with a good dose of horror
- Set around the entertainment industry, it pays tribute to Westerns, celluloid and old-school camera technology
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4.5/5 stars
At first glance, this latest effort reads more like a straight sci-fi – a story of UFO spotting in contemporary California. But be it a chimpanzee that goes wild in a TV studio or the gruesome fate suffered by Keith David’s horse wrangler, Peele soon warns us that Nope will enjoy its fair share of grim scares.
When it comes to the film’s extraterrestrial presence, think John Carpenter’s The Thing rather than the benevolent beings of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind or E.T.
The central pair are OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his younger sister Emerald (Keke Palmer), who run Haywood Hollywood Horses out of a dusty ranch after the death of their father. Business isn’t great – OJ is even selling off his nags to Ricky ‘Jupe’ Park (Steven Yeun), the owner of the nearby Star Lasso Experience, a Western-themed live show.
A former child actor, Jupe was part of TV show Gordy’s Home, which suffered a bizarre tragedy when Gordy – the aforementioned chimp – went utterly crazy on set.
After a series of strange events, OJ and Emerald realise there’s bizarre UFO activity hidden behind the clouds, which they believe is responsible for their father’s demise. They buy camera surveillance equipment from an electronics store, arousing the interest of shop employee Angel (Brandon Perea), and set out to capture alien footage.
Fame, money, and salvation beckon as the taciturn OJ and his excitable sibling come to figure out exactly what this alien presence wants.
OJ’s first gig was on The Scorpion King, and he even wears an orange hoodie from the production. Later, a motorbike-riding TMZ journalist comes sniffing for information. Prying cameras – something everyone has in their pocket these days – are deadly, it seems.
What Peele has created is not just a horror-sci-fi (with blood literally pouring from the skies), but a film that pays tribute to the Western, to show business, and even to celluloid and old-school camera technology.
It’s a fascinating, unique and utterly original work, enlivened by some wonderful performances, including Michael Wincott’s gravel-voiced cinematographer roped in to capture the “dream” on film. The result is one of the great studio movies this year.
