Nope

Call me old fashioned, but I like to think that if life from another planet did come to ours, it would be more interested than simply serving as the villain in a thriller.  Given his talent and imagination, I'd like to think that writer-director Jordan Peele would think the same way.  But if Nope is any indication, he too subscribes to Hollywood's theory that humans are the smartest race in the galaxy, and that aliens travel millions of miles through space just to threaten us with their hundreds of sharp teeth.

There are few experiences more disheartening to me at the movies than watching a filmmaker you admire putting so much effort into a screenplay that doesn't deserve it.  All of Peele's talents with creating tension (the film's opening scene, concerning an incident on a late 90s sitcom, is a real attention grabber) and juggling themes like black culture representation and the desire to control nature or things we don't understand are on display, but this time, they have been shackled to a lackluster and underdeveloped script.  The performances here are great, but the characters they are playing haven't been fleshed out.  What we have here is Jordan Peele's attempt at a big budget Summer Movie thriller, with spectacle and big budget set pieces.  And while he definitely shows his ambition here, and there are a number of great moments throughout, the movie never quite connected with me as a whole.

After that previously mentioned opening, we are introduced to our main characters, Otis "OJ" Haywood, Jr. (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer).  They are a brother and sister who are struggling to keep a horse ranch that trains animals for movies afloat after the mysterious death of their father, Otis Sr. (Keith David, who exits the movie before his name appears in the opening credits.) With business not going well, OJ is forced to sell some horses to a nearby carnival run by Ricky Park (Steven Yuen), a former child actor who was involved in that sitcom that kicks off the film.  Peele's script spends a lot of time setting up these three characters, perhaps a bit too much time, as the pacing drags quite a bit after the first few opening shots.  Eventually the plot kicks in, and we get the usual mysterious happenings of electricity in the house going off at strange times, and the horses at the ranch start acting wild and aggressively.  

Realizing that something paranormal is afoot and quickly settling on the idea of UFOs, Emerald wants to take a picture of whatever is causing it, and make money off of it.  This leads the two into town to buy some camera equipment, where we are introduced to who will become their sidekick, a goofy electronic store employee named Angel (Brandon Perea) who holds more than a few conspiracy theories about extra terrestrials.  His character is a perfect example of why this film never quite connected with me.  Perea plays the part well, and he gets some good one liners, but there is no reason for him to exist other than to be the comic relief of the film.  He never gets a real motivation as to why he is so determined to help out OJ and Emerald, whom he barely knows, and why he sticks with them for the rest of the movie, even letting them briefly stay at his place.  I was admiring the performances that the director was getting out of these actors, but there's little to latch onto aside from that.

I have praised Peele's vision and ambition in his previous two films, and I got to praise them again in Nope many times.  There are some individual moments that successfully raise the tension, and made me wonderfully uncomfortable.  But the movie as a whole just never clicked.  The characters at the center of it all who are supposed to drive the narrative are not as interesting or well developed as I would expect.  And I have grown increasingly weary of movies that treat life outside of humans as a simplistic threat that has no motivation or thought outside of being weird, gross, and wanting to terrorize us.  This is just Jurassic Park: Dominion all over again, only dressed up with better acting and a few genuinely tense moments.  There is no sense of wonder about this lifeform that is visiting us.  It is a well done special effect that exists simply so that we in the audience can feel better about ourselves, because we truly are the most intelligent and thoughtful race in the galaxy.

Do movies like this offer a comfort to some people, knowing that if aliens come to visit us, they are less intelligent, and seem to be made up of lots of tiny teeth that snarl at us?  Are we meant to feel superior when we see creatures like these that have no real intelligence, culture, or thought, and just want to terrorize?  I hope not, but considering how Hollywood seems to love this idea, I am becoming increasingly afraid.  You would think that as a filmmaker, Peele would be smart enough to avoid that trap, and maybe give us something a bit more thought provoking when it comes to life outside our own.  My heart sunk when this proved not to be so, and we get a standard third act that is all special effects, close calls, and action that doesn't register.  

I was looking forward to seeing what Peele could do with the idea of aliens visiting us, and that's why Nope is such a huge disappointment for me.  Instead of exploring the idea, he gives us more of the same crap, just dressed up with his unique style.  You can dress it up all you want, but it's still Independence Day. 

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