NOPE
***
Director: Jordan Peele
Screenplay: Jordan Peele
Principal cast:
Daniel Kaluuya
Keke Palmer
Brandon Perea
Michael Wincott
Steven Yeun
Keith David
Country: USA/Japan
Classification: M
Runtime: 130 mins.
Australian release date: 11 August 2022.
Jordan Peele is one of the most imaginative writer/directors working today but the creative mind behind Get Out and Us has let his heart rule his head in his overly-ambitious new film Nope. He has tried to do too much with his script, attempting to combine a number of themes and storylines that, regrettably, haven’t successfully gelled together. His material might have been better served if he’d made two films out of it, rather than cramming all his ideas into one. With a running time of two-hours-and-10-minutes, he wouldn’t have had to add much to make two 90-minute movies.
There are two time-lines playing out in Nope. It opens with a quote from the Bible, “I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile and make you a spectacle,” and both these intertwining stories have to do with spectacle. In the beginning, we’re on the set of a late ‘90s TV sit-com called Gordy’s Home, in which the star is a chimpanzee. When an exploding balloon startles the ape, he goes… well, ape, and causes carnage, which is witnessed by child-star Ricky ‘Jupe’ Park (Jacob Kim). Flash-forward to the present day and we’re now on the ranch of horse trainer Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David), who supplies horses for film and television productions. When he is killed in bizarre circumstances, his son Otis Jr., aka ‘OJ’ (Daniel Kaluuya), and daughter Emerald, aka ‘Em’ (Keke Palmer), try to keep the business running but it’s hard-going and OJ has to sell some of his horses to the ranch next door where a small Western theme park is run by no other than the now-adult Jupe (Steven Yeun from Burning and Minari). But something very strange is going on in the valley and OJ has realised that it involves some kind of UAP - that’s an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, what we used to call a UFO - and it seems to have an attraction to Jupe’s ‘Jupiter’s Claim’ theme park. If he and Em could just capture a picture of it, he figures, all their financial woes would be over, but there’s a lot more to this UAP than meets the eye.
Peele has mashed-up genres in his screenplays before and Nope is no exception; this time he’s thrown sci-fi and the Western into his usual horror/thriller mix. He’s got a much bigger budget and a bigger backdrop to work with, too. “I had this idea of making the Great American UFO movie - a flying saucer horror film,” he says. “And not only a flying saucer horror film, but really, the quintessential one. It’s a difficult genre and hard to pull off because it’s got this huge canvas that you have to take into account - the sky.” He acknowledges that he’s been influenced by Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and War of the Worlds, maybe even E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, in his desire to create a spectacular film - and there is definitely spectacle on display - yet, by expanding his idea to include more esoteric themes such as Man’s treatment of animals and the pros and cons of shooting on film versus digital, he has muddied the waters a little too much. The resulting mish-mash detracts from his ambition to make “the Great American UFO movie”; it could be there but it’s hidden under a pile of extraneous material.
Which is not to say that Nope doesn’t have good things going for it. It’s looks magnificent, for one thing. The great Swiss/Dutch cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema has shot on IMAX 65-millimetre film, showing off the film’s vast southern Californian rural locations to great effect, and Peele has once again drawn on the talents of Michael Abel for the score. Abel did the music for both Get Out and Us and in this one his compositions successfully straddle the line between eerie, atmospheric space music and more classic Western airs. In the final analysis, Jordan Peele has half-achieved his wish - he’s succeeded in making a visually spectacular movie but failed in his desire to make a spectacle for the ages. There’s too much referential film industry navel-gazing for it to be a multiplex blockbuster.
Screenplay: Jordan Peele
Principal cast:
Daniel Kaluuya
Keke Palmer
Brandon Perea
Michael Wincott
Steven Yeun
Keith David
Country: USA/Japan
Classification: M
Runtime: 130 mins.
Australian release date: 11 August 2022.
Jordan Peele is one of the most imaginative writer/directors working today but the creative mind behind Get Out and Us has let his heart rule his head in his overly-ambitious new film Nope. He has tried to do too much with his script, attempting to combine a number of themes and storylines that, regrettably, haven’t successfully gelled together. His material might have been better served if he’d made two films out of it, rather than cramming all his ideas into one. With a running time of two-hours-and-10-minutes, he wouldn’t have had to add much to make two 90-minute movies.
There are two time-lines playing out in Nope. It opens with a quote from the Bible, “I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile and make you a spectacle,” and both these intertwining stories have to do with spectacle. In the beginning, we’re on the set of a late ‘90s TV sit-com called Gordy’s Home, in which the star is a chimpanzee. When an exploding balloon startles the ape, he goes… well, ape, and causes carnage, which is witnessed by child-star Ricky ‘Jupe’ Park (Jacob Kim). Flash-forward to the present day and we’re now on the ranch of horse trainer Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David), who supplies horses for film and television productions. When he is killed in bizarre circumstances, his son Otis Jr., aka ‘OJ’ (Daniel Kaluuya), and daughter Emerald, aka ‘Em’ (Keke Palmer), try to keep the business running but it’s hard-going and OJ has to sell some of his horses to the ranch next door where a small Western theme park is run by no other than the now-adult Jupe (Steven Yeun from Burning and Minari). But something very strange is going on in the valley and OJ has realised that it involves some kind of UAP - that’s an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, what we used to call a UFO - and it seems to have an attraction to Jupe’s ‘Jupiter’s Claim’ theme park. If he and Em could just capture a picture of it, he figures, all their financial woes would be over, but there’s a lot more to this UAP than meets the eye.
Peele has mashed-up genres in his screenplays before and Nope is no exception; this time he’s thrown sci-fi and the Western into his usual horror/thriller mix. He’s got a much bigger budget and a bigger backdrop to work with, too. “I had this idea of making the Great American UFO movie - a flying saucer horror film,” he says. “And not only a flying saucer horror film, but really, the quintessential one. It’s a difficult genre and hard to pull off because it’s got this huge canvas that you have to take into account - the sky.” He acknowledges that he’s been influenced by Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and War of the Worlds, maybe even E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, in his desire to create a spectacular film - and there is definitely spectacle on display - yet, by expanding his idea to include more esoteric themes such as Man’s treatment of animals and the pros and cons of shooting on film versus digital, he has muddied the waters a little too much. The resulting mish-mash detracts from his ambition to make “the Great American UFO movie”; it could be there but it’s hidden under a pile of extraneous material.
Which is not to say that Nope doesn’t have good things going for it. It’s looks magnificent, for one thing. The great Swiss/Dutch cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema has shot on IMAX 65-millimetre film, showing off the film’s vast southern Californian rural locations to great effect, and Peele has once again drawn on the talents of Michael Abel for the score. Abel did the music for both Get Out and Us and in this one his compositions successfully straddle the line between eerie, atmospheric space music and more classic Western airs. In the final analysis, Jordan Peele has half-achieved his wish - he’s succeeded in making a visually spectacular movie but failed in his desire to make a spectacle for the ages. There’s too much referential film industry navel-gazing for it to be a multiplex blockbuster.