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Aliens are no strangers to cinema. From War of the Worlds and ET to Independence Day and Arrival, UFOs have landed on screens regularly in the last 70 years, meaning filmmakers are now faced with the difficult question of how do you make a movie about extraterrestrials feel remotely original? Well, with Nope, Jordan Peele\u2019s third film (after Get Out and Us), the writer\/director has answered in impressive fashion.<\/p>\n
Sitting somewhere between horror and sci-fi thriller, it begins with a cryptic Bible quote: \u201cI will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle.\u201d With this warning \u2014 and that last word \u201cspectacle\u201d is the key \u2014 the action soon starts in Agua Dulce, southern California, where a Black family trains horses to be used in Hollywood film, TV and advertising, but has been rocked by a series of UFO sightings on their ranch. Siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) have polar-opposite personalities \u2014 she\u2019s the care-free one who schmoozes clients, he\u2019s the taciturn animal wrangler \u2014 but soon hatch a plan to catch the saucer in the sky on film, with the help of tech store clerk Angel (Brandon Perea).<\/p>
However, as if that wasn\u2019t enough, further down the Santa Clarita valley there\u2019s more showbiz-related creepiness, as a man named Jupe (Minari\u2019s Steven Yeun) runs a spectacularly tacky wild-west theme park. He\u2019s a former 90s sitcom child actor whose career stalled when his co-star, a chimpanzee named Gordy, went on a murderous rampage on set \u2014 an incident that is depicted in a show-stopping flashback of pure, primal horror.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, though, this is no ordinary creature feature. Peele wrings tension and dread from keeping his alien unseen in a way that recalls Spielberg\u2019s Jaws or M Night Shyamalan\u2019s Signs, yet as a whole Nope is a much more enigmatic blockbuster. From inflatable tube men waving in a desert valley to blood raining down on a house, the director continues to have a knack for composing striking imagery, and many viewers will enjoy poring over Nope\u2019s symbols and metaphorical suggestions of \u2018what does it all mean?\u2019 Could the struggle of filming the UFO be an allegory for the process of filmmaking, or is it a critique of technology-driven surveillance? Only Peele knows, but fans will enjoy theorising.<\/p>\n