Nope

After the overly pretentious Us, where social critique and metaphor overwhelmed the functioning of the film as a whole, with Nope Jordan Peele returns to a simple idea set in a functional genre piece, as he did with Get Out. And it has exactly that Spielberg charm of wonder at the supernatural element, touches of well-measured comedy, moments of chilling horror and, most importantly, adventure. There hasn't been a film this epically adventurous, with the feeling that you're experiencing an exclusive adventure together with the characters, for a long time. Thumbs up! Is Jordan Peele the cinematic genius and horror wizard the American media and critics in particular would have us believe? Not at all. But is he an interesting and capable filmmaker whose work is worth watching? That’s for sure. (10/09/2022)

Excellent in terms of Peele's creative limits, and in terms of the current creative limits of the contemporary mainstream it’s one of the films of the year. Anyway, who am I kidding, the movie itself is divine. If, like me, you're lucky enough to have seen the film as a complete "tabula rasa", you're in for a magical hour and a half of gradually unraveling mysteries in Hollywood Hills, during which various scripted red herrings and plot contrivances scramble around you, hilariously referencing the magical idiocy of 1990s American TV that Tarantino, for example, was so fond of talking about. After all, after his last film, I think Peele is much closer to him than to the oft-cited Hitchcock. It works as a genre piece, but with even a minimum of knowledge of American pop culture it starts to become apparent how insanely great the whole film is. The charm of big horse eyes, Harambe, the haunted aura of Hollywood ranches, cameramen measuring guns, Wincott pulled out of somewhere by his collar, a soundtrack that steals from both Morricone and Badalamenti, and a cloud that doesn't move for six months without anyone noticing. And Hoytema behind the camera. Yep. (22/08/2022)

One could easily give in to the temptation to declare Peele the new Tarantino in an attempt to elevate him as one of the most distinctive and unique talents of the contemporary American overground. Except the fundamental difference between the two filmmakers is that Tarantino is a self-regarding nerd who adores the mythology of cinema and fictional heroes, whereas Peele turns to reality, as he is not only a cinephile, but also a creator who reflects on society and the bizarre paradoxes of its apparatuses and status quo. Therefore, his films are not merely sophisticatedly enthusiastic games played with film formulas and eclectic monuments to fringe movies and filmmakers, but biting satires and multi-layered works that can be simultaneously entertaining and chilling. Peele’s third feature-length project is fascinating as a uniquely unpredictable narrative that builds a stunning monument to cinema and its pioneers on a foundation of mystery and contact with something alien. In his equivalent of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Peele doesn’t go the way of Tarantino’s illusory fiction and enchanted, adoring pathos, but creates a film that consciously works with paradoxes and contradictions. Nope is thus both a sci-fi movie and a western dealing with the bitterness of the entertainment industry, which catches itself in its own trap as it grooms viewers who demand ever newer and more spectacular attractions. It thus seems inevitable that this changing industry should leave its old strivers and pioneers in the dust. Peele pays homage to the obsession with the perfect shot, but he paradoxically does so with the background of a time when that perfection is already artificial and created without risk thanks to computer-generated effects and digital post-production. What is most surprising about Nope is that, though it deals with old Hollywood and its magic and pathos, it does not address tearful old men, but conveys that ethos to the younger generation weaned on YouTube and hanging around on social networks every day. (15/09/2022)

Siblings OJ and Emerald are struggling with a failing farm, their own relationship, and now with something hiding in the clouds, and as it soon turns out, it's pretty damn dangerous. Only how do you expose this thing, which is good at hiding and doesn't like to let witnesses in, to the world? And how to survive it? Jordan Peele delivers a science fiction film that doesn't quite work in the first half, and he as a director doesn't quite manage to build the tension as well as he might have liked. But he makes up for it all with the final act, when the humans and the mysterious something from the clouds have a fair fight. The closer we get to the end, the smarter and more entertaining Nope gets. And it looks really beautiful. But Peele still can't do real fear and terror. (17/08/2022)

For two thirds the film is a compelling, engrossing and carefully constructed horror-thriller mystery that kept me engaged as the characters struggled to get to the bottom of the mystery. This part of Nope, which I was very pleased with, culminated in a magnificent night scene with "blood rain" that made me glow with bliss and consider awarding five star to a horror flick for the first time in a long time. But, as you can see, I didn’t go further than three. Because the film then turns into an action charade, where you don't care about the characters and just try to catch the design of the weird contraption and figure out if you like it or not. And what shocked me above all is that it doesn't actually come to anything. After his previous two films, you'd expect Jordan Peele to be ... smarter than that? Us may have been logically leaky, but I found its social references were very stimulating (and that goes twofold  for Get Out). There's nothing like that in Nope, or I don't see it there at first. Many people, often dismissively, refer to Peele as the king of "elevated horror", but this is, in the end, more or less an ordinary genre film. In the space of half an hour, the film shoots two or three banal ideas (what people are willing to risk for fame and success / the fascination with tragedy / the stupid notion that man can tame everything), which it then repeats to the point of foolishness, but doesn't take them anywhere. I don't want to sound overly critical, Nope is definitely nice to look at, it has a number of impressive scenes and it's certainly a good film to see in the cinema, but after the excellent first two acts I can't help feeling disappointed at the end. (17/08/2022)