NOPE (2022)

​Rating: 87/100
 
Nope is the first movie I have seen in theaters this summer and it wasn’t easy. The first time I tried to see the film I walked into a pitch-black theater, some of the members of the audience were complaining about there not being any trailers, then boom! The movie just popped up and began playing, many people including myself didn’t even realize the movie started, thinking it was the first trailer. About halfway through the movie all hell broke loose when the movie stopped abruptly. 30 minutes later it started back up again but it was further ahead in the movie. The theater finally decided to refund our tickets and I got new tickets for the next showing the following day.
 
After a rough start the second viewing of Nope ran smoothly and allowed me to notice some things from the first half that I hadn’t during the first viewing. The movie follows OJ, and Emerald Haywood played by Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer. They are siblings and related to the horse jockey that was in the first ever film to see if horses weren’t ever not touching the ground. The Haywood family have become staples in Hollywood provided everything horse related. After unexplained events happening around their property, their father Otis, played by Keith David dies. To make some money OJ begins selling horses to their neighbor who runs an adventure park, this is Jupe played by Steven Yeun. Child actor gone wrong when a monkey on the set of his show went off the rails killing everyone besides him.
 
The act by the monkey of letting Jupe live resonates with him, as he wants to make a spectacle out of anything and especially out of the UFO that flies around his and the Haywood’s property. On the other hand, the Haywoods want to be the first to capture a UFO on camera, like how their great grandfather was the first to be on camera. Jordan Peele does an amazing job again with his third film, as he takes on a new type of horror we’ve never seen. The way he composed his shots by leaving the sky above visible had me scanning the stars to see if any of them weren’t. This film truly had me on the edge of my seat and once again put humans in perspective. Showing how we can sometimes be greedy and try to take advantage of others to gain fame and fortune. Even if that means risking everything…