In NOPE, writer/director Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us) continues his string of successful feature films that honors The Twilight Zone genre with a contemporary twist. As such, it is a thoroughly entertaining film with elements of science fiction and horror.
OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), struggle financially with their horse farm. When ominous signs appear from a mysterious presence in the sky, they try to document the phenomenon with a techie friend only to learn an astonishing truth. What began as curiosity, becomes a struggle for survival against a terrifying force.
Both
fascinating and macabre, the film maintains an ominous, unsettled atmosphere of
menace and foreboding with creepy visuals and sound effects as Peele’s fertile
mind fills his palette like a painter. You may think you know what’s happening,
and as you try to make sense of things, the story takes audience expectations
and upends them while deliberately steering to a gripping finale.
It’s
not a perfect film. (A subplot involving trauma on a past children’s show goes
nowhere.) What makes this an even stronger film is how one character evolves significantly
over the course of the narrative and shines by the end. As a genre film,
this fits among Arrival, Close Encounters
of the Third Kind, and War of the
Worlds (2005), and it has a similar vibe to M. Night Shyamalan films.
With
imaginative visual effects and a pulsating music score, this well acted and
brilliantly shot thrill ride needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible;
it’s Peele’s most cinematic and largest budgeted film to date. He has essentially made a grand X Files film. It’s a captivating magic trick that keeps you
wondering and guessing until its riveting end.
****
of **** stars (for Peele fans)
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