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Review by E.C. McMullen Jr. |
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USA Release: June 22, 2022 Monkeypaw Productions, Universal Pictures Rating: USA: R |
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NOPE begins with...
No wait, that was just the opening to Monkeypaw productions.
Okay. Here we go. Shouting, screaming, in a living room on a TV or movie set. Someone's body is hidden by a couch, we only see their legs sticking out.
A chimpanzee in a party hat, hands and face all bloody, enters the picture. The chimp sits dejectedly, bats at the person's foot but there's no response. Seemingly disgruntled it removes the hat then looks directly at us, the audience.
Now we're outside at a ranch that we will come to learn is a movie ranch for a family run business of animal wranglers, specifically horses.
Otis Haywood Jr. (Keith David: John Carpenter's THE THING, John Carpenter's THEY LIVE, THE PUPPET MASTERS, SPAWN [TV - all], PITCH BLACK, KAENA: THE PROPHECY, CORALINE, RICK AND MORTY [TV]) is talking to his adult son, OJ (Daniel Kaluuya: JONAH [short], GET OUT), about their business, The Haywood Hollywood Horse Ranch.
Beneath an overcast sky, OJ hears the damndest thing. A sound like people screaming, but there's only OJ and his Pop as far as the eye can see.
Little bits of junk start falling from the sky.
Otis slumps in the saddle. Then he falls off his horse. OJ rushes his Pop to the nearby clinic but its a long way and blood spurts from Otis' face.
The cause was a nickel. A nickel somehow came out of nowhere and buried itself with bullet force deep into Otis's head.
OJ returns to the ranch, silently devastated, and notices for the first time that his Pop's horse has a house key halfway buried in its rump.
OJ can't begin to understand why (who could?). Time passes and OJ tries to run the business himself. He stands with his horse, Lucky, inside a movie set against a green screen backdrop.
He doesn't know how to talk movie talk to the folks who jabber nothing but, all around him, and he barely understands what they say. Suddenly OJ's sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer: CLEANER, ANIMAL, SCREAM QUEENS [TV], SCREAM QUEENS: THE TV SERIES [TV]) arrives, apologizes for being late, talks the talk that the movie people understand, goes on too long, then hits the craft services table to schmooze, leaving OJ floundering once again.
Between OJ not knowing how to communicate with movie folks on a tight schedule, the crew themselves ranging from professional to pea-brained, and an animal the size of a skittish horse that's out of its comfort zone with a human that's out of his, Merry Mishaps occur.
One lost job later and it all comes out on the trip back home. OJ is struggling to pay the bills and the savings are running out. Emerald is unconcerned about everything that isn't her and flippantly tells him to sell the ranch. OJ makes it clear he will never do that. He would rather die before he sells the ranch. There's friction and distance between the siblings but we don't know how much yet.
What we do know is, over these past six month's since Otis died, OJ has a deep suspicion that something is new to the valley and he doesn't know how to tell his sister without sounding like a fool.
Emerald is no one you want to give that leverage to.
She stays the night, planning to leave after the weekend, and discovers for herself what her brother won't say.
UFO!
Damn! We could get a photo! Hell, maybe a video of a UFO! No SFX bullshit! A real one! The Oprah shot!
The very idea excites Emerald but OJ doesn't have enough money to buy expensive equipment.
With dreams of wealth and fame dancing in her heart, Emerald searches online for the best security video equipment - focused on recording strange phenomena. She ponies up the money and it's a trip to a faltering Fry's Electronics in Burbank, one of the last. The store is nearly vacant and the workers - including their supervisor - have all stopped caring.
Emerald found the best equipment she could afford and brings it to the checkout. Enter one bored Fry's associate, Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) who spends too little time doing his job (because there are so few customers) and a lot of time on the Internet watching YouTube videos. As he rings up the mix of machinery it dawns on him why they're buying it. And anyone who looks so broke and is spending so much must be pretty certain of themselves.
With all the sudden enthusiasm he can muster, he convinces the Haywoods that they need him to install their equipment. As leery as they are in bringing anyone new onboard, OJ and Emerald realize that they don't even know how to operate their new fancy electronics, let alone install them.
Meanwhile, OJ and Emerald aren't the only ones aware of something in the sky.
Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yeun: THE WALKING DEAD [TV], MAYHEM, BURNING, INVINCIBLE [TV]), who owns the Jupiter's Claim tourist trap just down the hill from the Haywood ranch, is aware of and believes that the UFO is benevolent. Moreover, that it's friendly and will bring him fame and fortune.
We soon see how that turns out.
From the fact that this is a Jordan Peele (GET OUT, US, THE TWILIGHT ZONE [2019-2020], LOVECRAFT COUNTRY [TV], CANDYMAN [2021]) movie, and since 2017 he's worked to make his name as a Horror movie Writer, Producer, and Director; to the poster telling us that this movie is a "New Terror", to the brief glimpses in the movie trailer of a flying saucer that looks decidedly threatening, you could be forgiven if, knowing nothing more, you think you see where this movie is going. I certainly thought so and I was onboard for the experience.
Then Peele takes it all beyond that to a place better than I imagined and I loved it!
This is a great concept and, while Jordan doesn't seem ready to do sequels yet, I'd love to see a few more movies pursue his vision. How the UFO hides in plain sight, how it "abducts" people, and more are all creatively simple, making them believable.
I'm five shriek girls in all the way, right up to the mid-point.
That's where it all starts crumbling.
There's a sudden disappearance of 40 people - everyone - from an outdoor event. Their cars are there, but the place is worse than deserted: The place is trashed - evidence of destructive violence.
This makes the news. The reporter tells viewers that it's nothing to be concerned about.
Wait. What?
40 local people violently vanish from the face of the earth. They don't return to work, go to school, all of their connected family don't know where they are, and no form of law enforcement - At All - has any further interest in this other than to police tape the area.
Nope. No cause for alarm, here.
The hundreds of family, friends, neighbors, coworkers are satisfied with that?
Would you accept such a statement from law enforcement? Would anybody?
A day or so later and the fact that it was on the news makes the old and jaded cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott: THE CROW, ALIEN: RESURRECTION), from the movie set, ring the Haywood ranch. Holst thinks he knows what's going on, but they can't capture it with digital cameras or anything electronic, as power goes out in the presence of UFOs. But he has a hand cranked IMAX camera and he wants to come out to their ranch.
He arrives the next day and that night they hash out their terms. Now there are four people involved.
Emerald thinks she knows a way to get the UFO's attention so she goes on a little shopping (?) trip. Peele makes it clear that Emerald is comfortable with stealing. At least her brother thinks so.
The next day they carefully set everything up, always watchful, always ready to run. Time is passing and no government or news anyone from any place is concerned that 40 people all violently vanished without a trace at once and never returned (kidnapped? Nobody knows)!
And still...
No mobs of people come questioning.
Nothing. Jupiter's Claim is deserted.
They might as well be in Antarctica for all the attention such an astounding thing has brought. From here on in, despite everything else that I like about the movie (and there's plenty), this plot hole keeps growing wider with every passing scene. Only the main characters in the movie return to the place where the 40 folks vanished and it's deserted, nothing but the abandoned cars.
WTF?
Have you ever noticed what happens (many times a year unfortunately) when a single baby or child goes missing in a community? It makes international news and, for the next 72 hours, search parties are scouring miles of area as law enforcement knocks on all doors, questions and suspects everyone in the vicinity.
Jordan still had my attention though. I let myself believe that he would have a believable reason for this. But by the end of the credits as the lights came up, NOPE offered no reason at all.
You know what would have made this a bit more believable?
If the newscaster never said that the disappearance was "nothing to be concerned about." Cut that out and I could believe, though I didn't see or hear it, that the news reporter continued talking about the search parties, the investigation, the governor calling out the reserves, whoever. I could believe the natural order of everyone connected to 40 missing people would accept whatever was said that I didn't hear.
Visually it would be one hell of a stretch, sure (nobody's milling around Jupiter's Claim, day and night), but I could suspend my disbelief of that rather than everyone being sedate about the police and TV news saying 40 people disappearing all at once is nothing to worry about.
But to accept a blithe,
"40 people all missing at once? Aye, Fuggedaboutit!"
But that's a quick editing fix.
NOPE could have been a far better movie if the screenplay didn't have a main character - with the biggest backstory of all the characters - who has absolutely nothing to do with the movie, story, or how it begins, carries through, and ends - at all!
When the credits roll, I was left thinking,
'Then what did *X* have to do with shit?'
Take that one main, but utterly pointless, character out - a character that makes it to halfway in the second act and contributes nothing to the rest of the movie - and you might go from a 2 hour and 10 minute movie to an edge of your seat taut 90 minute Horror movie that develops the main family more. Peele's story makes it clear that there is a deep and interesting background to Otis the elder, who is given the thinnest veneer of the main characters (nothing is given to their mother).
That said, the cinematography of Hoyte Van Hoytema (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, BAD FAITH, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, INTERSTELLAR, AD ASTRA, TENET) is wonderfully eye-catching and kept me in my seat, hoping for the best.
Further, what happens in the final act is amazing, suspenseful, awesome to behold and the action scenes are tense and thrilling.
Well done on the believable and mostly practical special effects!
Yet with what seems like a good half hour or more dedicated to an unnecessary character (good and interesting background, no question. The character also utters a lot of catchy catch phrases for the trailer. But again, little to do with the movie and the character's long back story contributes nothing), plus the astounding lack of interest from the world regarding such a profound mystery, is more unbelievable than the UFO.
I hope NOPE won't be to Jordan Peele, what SIGNS was to M. Night Shyamalan, the start of a long descent.
Three Shriek Girls.
This review copyright 2022 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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