Nope (Jordan Peele)

pixelburp

First trailer, suitably enigmatic. I'll be honest, I'm fairly ambivalent at first blush about the trailer and I think Peele's main flaw might be his ideas can't sustain a full feature: Get Out was a fun thriller (but not a horror IMO), yet Us was tedious, a short-film stretched to feature-length. And even the former kinda dragged things out, while the petering out once the shoe Actually dropped.

As a non American, his obvious, constant theme of race kinda go over my head a little - even if I get what he's trying to say, and why. Just not sure the meat around these skeletons is particular substantial either.

https://youtu.be/In8fuzj3gck

Slydice

That looks like a decent science fiction horror.

Trailer seems to be teasing a few elements that I'm guess they are saving for the film itself.

Not sure there was any big selling scene but it did lean into an Ominous feel. Is the word the guy was looking for: omen.. disaster .. tragedy?

Slydice

Superbowl spot

NOPE - SBLVI SPOT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x__vh1H0dQ

Feels like most previously seen footage.. but..

Spoiler Warning

That clickey noise.. sounds a bit Alien/Predator

kowloon

Really liked Get Out, Us didn't do it for me at all.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118627360#Comment_118627360

Get Out was reasonable if over-praised for sure.

Us was muddled and frankly boring.

At least he's not out to bury an existing IP this time like the way he effectively killed off both "The Twilight Zone" (one of the worst reboots ever witnessed when it should have been a home-run with "Black Mirror" showing the way) and "Candyman" (a completely facile-messaged non-horror movie bastardisation of a horror franchise).

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118636528#Comment_118636528

I forgot all about Twilight Zone. Yeah, there was an audience for it, but it turned out to be a mess. Hadn't realised it was axed, but it's no surprise.

pixelburp

Never even watched The Twilight Zone, though that's more about my allergy towards anthology shows than critical reception - though yeah, I had heard it got a bit of a kicking when it came out.

Looks like Peele wrote very little - and directed nothing - of the series, if Wikipedia is anything to go by. I did spot the name of one Simon Kinsberg (aka, he who kept making those awful X-Men movies and nothing else), so big yikes there.

Peele (and Simon Kinberg) were the rebooters and creators of the series

They lined up the writers and directors, showrunner etc and obviously were key in deciding what the concept, tone, "messaging" and material of the show was going to be and recruited on that basis

Their production companies produced the show

It's on them really

Peele also wrote some episodes

Less importantly he was also the narrator and host but nonetheless he was the "face" of the series and marketed as such also

In the media it was frequently and deliberately referred to as "Jordan Peele's reboot" or "Jordan Peele's The Twilight Zone"

On February 24, 2021, CBS All Access announced the series would be ending after two seasons; Peele and Kinberg's companies released a joint statement indicating that although All Access (rebranded as Paramount+) wanted the series to continue, it was "our decision" and that they had "told the stories that we wanted to tell".

Terribly boring stuff and with the usual over-riding "brick to the face" trademark subtlety of the creator.

Not a patch on the original and a complete disaster.

Even the guardian didn't like it

Instead of the original series’ bleakly measured contemplation of mankind’s capacity for cruelty and evil, the reboot falls into either preachiness or schmaltz.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/feb/25/the-twilight-zone-review-a-pointless-reboot-that-never-enters-the-fifth-dimension

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/twilight-zone-creators-season-one-1196768/

pixelburp

Final trailer; be warned, it does strip away all of the mystery from previous promotions.

But hey; a simple A to B story never hurt anyone.

Spoiler Warning

It's a flying saucer.

https://youtu.be/HUgmq_8PlRY

Slydice

I'm kinda glad they demystified it now.. because.. I hadn't a notion it was going that way and .. it mighta been a bit of a let down

Don't worry.

It won't really be about that at all.

2/5 on it's Roots with warp drive.

JP Liz V1

It was shot using Kodak film and in addition to regular formats, will also be released in a 65mm IMAX format

Agent Coulson

First reviews are coming out and they of course are all positive.

Do early reviews ever be negative.

ThePott

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119358334#Comment_119358334

The only one that comes to my mind is when Fox lifted the embargo for X-Men Apocalyps nearly 3 weeks early and they were nearly all negative/mixed. Think that was after it had a premiere in London though. Morbius more recently had bad reactions about a week out.

Have some anticipation for Nope even though Us left me wanting. Also annoyed cause I didn't realise it wasn't out here till mid-August.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119358334#Comment_119358334

All the reviews for "Us" were pretty much positive also and....

Former JP darlings the BBC and The Guardian don't like it.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jul/20/nope-review-jordan-peele-daniel-kaluuya

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220720-nope-film-review-a-limping-would-be-romp

El Duda

That 2 star review is from peter Bradshaw. The worst critic of all time.

cmac2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119368704#Comment_119368704

The 'reverse bradshaw' is terrific system for judging the quality of a film.

Bradshaw gave "Us" four stars out of five and that was shite

So "Nope" is going to be a classic then is it?!

rrrright

🤣🤣🤣

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/mar/11/us-review-jordan-peeles-brash-and-brilliant-beach-holiday-horror

pixelburp

I'm beginning to get a hint that just maybe, glasso doesn't like Jordan Peele movies. Just a hint, mind, it's subtle. 🤣🙄

I've said that "Get Out" was decent (but at least a tad over-rated, and merely a "Stepford Wives" rehash with "color" thrown in)

Peele himself is vastly over-rated, yet MUST be praised just because.

But since then he has completely mangled beyond repair both "The Twilight Zone" and "Candyman" and also "Us" was boring and a mess ultimately.

This looks like another stinker but mind-bogglingly there still are not a few huggers who know very well that they have stepped into dogshit but pretend that they can't smell it, adding on a level or two to their ratings to his films that are in no way warranted.

cmac2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119368890#Comment_119368890

Well done, you're getting it.

johnny_ultimate

Have seen a lot of very positive reviews from critics and outlets I tend to follow, alongside a handful of mixed ones out there in the ether. Particularly glad to hear it's quite the exciting big screen spectacle, as I felt Us was a big leap in terms of Peele's visual and stylistic ambitions. Looking forward to finding out myself whether it does / doesn't work, although shame about the weird delay with the Irish / UK release.

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/07/jordan-peele-nope-review/670579/

https://lwlies.com/reviews/nope/

The cascade of glowing reviews for the messy and boring piece that was "Us" definitively shows that the glossing over of glaringly obvious significant flaws is rampant in this special case.

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/us

the fact that "Nope" has a worse rating that "Us" does not augur well.

maybe it's just as bad as "Us" and not actually worse, but also that some of the perceived need to ignore the obvious is wearing off?

Subtle subtext can be art.

The opposite is certainly not.

the cringe-level behaviour of certain sections of the press who deem it vital to proclaim anything connected to him "important" is more than faintly ridiculous

It's akin to Facebook and Google making sure they have loads of employees wearing company t-shirts and waving flags at a pride parade.

Over-riding view for "Nope" seems to be lack of focus and clarity.

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/nope

The term "elevated horror" has been applied to Peele by some, the most "elevated" aspect beyond doubt has been the critic ratings!

Slydice

Seems to be an easy spoiler film with something not seen in the trailers from what I can tell of the reactions.

Also mention of being worth a big screen.

Though.. if they've kept it hush-hush maybe other films have already booked out the big screens in cinemas.

gmisk

Decent opening weekend in the US.

https://variety.com/2022/film/box-office/nope-box-office-opening-weekend-jordan-peele-1235324105/

speedboatchase

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119382158#Comment_119382158

Fell below initial projections and got a B- cinemascore (not great and indicates poor word of mouth to come). I'll judge for myself when it's released here but I don't think - in terms of audience reactions and overall box office - this will be on a par with Get Out and Us.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119388724#Comment_119388724

Yeah but sure aren't actual cinema audiences (polled by trusted 40-year research firm techniques particularly focused on target market success for the industry) supposed to be completely dumb compared to a critic who is trying hard to say the "right thing" and even willing to go damage control in the relevant context of a movie that that had a prime release slot date with little to no competition yet still didn't hit the figures?

2nd-weekend figures are particularly instructive on the word-of-mouth effect.

Audience score on rotten tomatoes also not great.

https://www.cinemascore.com/

https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/nope-box-office-media-bias/

https://imgur.com/0LEgR79

The word-of-mouth has definitely kicked in as "Nope" plummets to $18.6 million this weekend gone, dethroned by the massive blockbuster new release mega-competition that is.... "DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS " which raked in a giganormous $23 mill on its debut weekend to hit the top of the revenue pie of any movie in the US market

Can't really accuse "DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS " of stealing the target market revenue of "Nope" to be fair!

johnny_ultimate

Loved this… and I’m not just saying that because it includes an extended homage to my favourite anime series 😎

An exceptionally unusual film in many ways, while still being a more straightforward narrative than Us. There’s nothing particularly ‘out there’ about the central story. Its strangeness comes in the execution: the mood and atmosphere is extremely compelling, full of weirdly haunting, creepy scenes. It’s not really outright ‘scary’, but some of the sequences are uniquely unsettling and 'off' in a way that really gets under the skin.

I love how Peele plays around with the visuals in this: part Spielbergian spectacle for sure, but it’s a film thematically and visually fascinated with the very concept of spectacle and how we’re living in a world dominated by relentless images of atrocities, tragedies and absurdities. A film that’s much less of a ‘statement’ than his previous works (those who want one will likely be left frustrated), but one which spins off from Peele’s fascination with how we understand the modern world through the constant stream of images, and how those images are exploited and interpreted. The way Hoyte van Hoytema and Peele use characters' perspectives to frame the action in surprising ways is great... and indeed frames themselves are a major motif throughout the film. I'm keen to watch again to pay more attention to the visual decisions made throughout.

Also thought it was fascinating how the film - particularly through Kaluuya and Yeun's characters - dealt with the ways individuals deal with trauma. This isn't explicitly a 'pandemic film', but the sense of characters simply struggling to process the events around rings particularly true after the last few years.

It's far less of an overt comedy than Get Out, but I love Peele’s continued ability to release tension after a suspenseful stretch with a quick, well-earned laugh. In particular...

Spoiler Warning

...the alien fake-out in the stables is incredible, as is Kaluuya's response as he decides to stay in the car when some truly heinous **** is unfolding.

Anyway, really great film - absolutely not for everyone, and if I was to make one criticism it's that it took me 20-30 mins to tune into the film's strange wavelength. It's certainly messy as it works to get the pieces on the table. But gotta say I was totally on board after a while and it's one I'm already looking forward to revisiting.

Gusser09

7.5 out of 10 on IMDB is good enough for me. I'll go to see it.

Decuc500

Liked it a lot. Peele's films always stand out for me and Nope is so much better than bland summer blockbuster fare. I wasn't expecting a Tarantino vibe but it's there in the unhurried pace, weird subplots and use of title cards throughout. It's also a film about film making in a way and set on the periphery of Hollywood.

It was nice to experience this without knowing anything about the plot. There's a surprising mix of genres and good sense of fun throughout, but there's also some downright disturbing imagery.

It's a 'Yep' from me.

santana75

I just dont think I'm getting the Jordan Peele thing at all. I thought Get out was poor and massively overrated, ditto for US and this movie is even worse than those two combined. Its boring, bizarre at times and I honestly cant recall a more annoying Character and performance this side of Jar Jar Binks than Keke Plamer's "Em". I just wanted her to shut up. Daniel Kaluuya by contrast is excellent and says very little.

speedboatchase

A Yep from me but not quite a Yope (the highest honour). There's a 40 mins or so extended sequence in the middle that is incredibly tense and showed Peele at his absolute best. We're talking Jurassic Park, Jaws levels of tension and spectacle. And yet... the third act didn't really work for me. It showed a bit too much and didn't build on the threat that had been established. Felt a bit inert.

Still a great watch, but maybe my least favourite of Peele's three movies so far. 7.5/10 for me.

growleaves

Enjoyed this a lot. Really fun and I liked the three main characters. Best horse movie since Coen Brothers' True Grit.

I haven't seen any other Peele movies yet. I've seen Kay & Peele sketches on Youtube, very funny.

RocketRaccoon

Can someone spoiler tag the ending explanation for me? Watched it yesterday and thought it was absolutely awful, not even close to Get Out or Us.

Fysh

Saw this yesterday and liked it a lot, particularly the way it brought its different strands together at the end. Kaluuya and Yeun's performances were great, and the cinematography really helped to sell the idea.

As johnny-ultimate mentions above, it's not a comedic film but that did give several moments more impact as momentary comedic relief of tension. The ones he mentioned in spoilers are standouts but at my screening there was a similar effect when

the creature's electromagnetic disruption field reaches the motorcyclist as it travels at full speed (the bike seizes up and violently ejects its rider); a few seconds later, someone says "well, ok, nobody could have survived that so there's no point in trying to rescue them" (or words to that effect) only for the injured rider to immediately scream very loudly

Spoiler Warning

I think the only slight misstep in the entire film is when

Spoiler Warning

Angel notices the un-moving cloud - rather than either showing us Angel watching the footage and finding this, or showing us Em or OJ do the same when Angel comes to see them, we see a very short snippet of the footage and then get told what it shows.

I'm glad I saw this in the cinema - the visuals, particularly the wider landscape shots, deserve a big screen and the sound needs as good a sound system as you can get. Certainly my tv and home speakers can't compete when it comes to the bass at various points in the film.

ancapailldorcha

I must've seen a different film. It started off quite well but it got quite tedious at the end. I fell asleep in the last ten minutes or so.

brianregan09

I kind of agree with some of the other posters in that 2/3s of the film were fantastic , it went off a cliff near the end though , there's a particular gruesome scene in the middle of the movie at , we should have got more of that rather than the end bits which were a bit bizarre imo

ThePott

I quite enjoyed this, more than most seemingly after not really loving Us.

Best description I've heard of this is; "Jaws upside-down"

johnny_ultimate

I adored how weird and bizarre it got in the end.

Spoiler Warning

It's so exciting to see a Hollywood film directly riffing on some of the more abstract alien & creature designs from animation. Going in I did not expect the finale to be the equivalent of an Evangelion Angel attack, but lo and behold Peele himself has directly referenced Eva as a major influence on the film. The strange, transforming and sorta squishy craft design - with a crystalline centre - is straight out of anime. And he also throws in the Akira bike pose to further underline the anime influence. And compare the UFO here to the craft design in the clip below...

https://youtu.be/s3OZt45NbA8

Spoiler Warning

I think the comparisons run deeper than just visual homages - big, bold, shoot-for-the-stars spectacle filmmaking that mixes all sorts of ideas and themes in with its sci-fi flights of fancy is pure Eva.

Stuff like Pacific Rim thinks it's enough to have giant robots fighting each other and call it a day, but it's great to see a filmmaker embrace and riff on the crazier side of anime on a canvas as big as Peele is working with here.

Full_Circle_81

I'm definitely not aboard the Peele train with this one. Once the reveal came about, it just felt too silly and all the characters motivations were so irrational. Some parts were indeed unnerving, but the third act deflated so much of the creepiness with overexposure. Ironically, I think this would have functioned much better as an hour long Twilight Zone episode. But this movie felt *endless*, I kept thinking it was almost over, but it just kept on going. And what a waste of the amazing Keith David!

Fred Astaire

Just because you can figure out the message of the director, or understand some of his themes, doesn't mean that the movie itself is any good.

When you give the message priority over the story, it often leads to a bit of a mess - which is exactly what this ended up being.

The characters are underdeveloped, and whatever threadbare contrast Peele is trying to display between Yeun and Kaluuya's characters doesn't really land because ultimately - both are looking to exploit it. Does it really matter if one is looking to do so more than the other? Or that one is better at dealing with it than the other? Does it matter if one is should have learned from previous experience to be less exploitative? A load of irrelevant fluff. Both Yeun & Gordie's interaction and Kaluuya and Jean's interaction ends the exact same way.

The third act in particular is absolutely god-awful.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119527929#Comment_119527929

For "The Twilight Zone" it's a case of "been there done that" for the director.

That has already been successfully and brutally butchered.

https://headstuff.org/entertainment/film/the-twilight-zone-2019-review-reboot-jordan-peele/

gmisk

Massively enjoyed that.

Bar Keke Palmer...f#ck me...what a horrendously annoying character. Grated every single time she was on screen.

I haven't see her in anything before....I am not sure if she was the issue or the character.

Kaluuya and Yeun both top notch. I enjoyed the twists and turns and madness really.

Fysh

Genuinely a bit surprised that it was the third act that has frustrated so many, more in that I'm not sure what changed at that point. Still, if you didn't like it, you didn't like it.

Would be interested to read more detail on what didn't work for you in the third act, if anyone feels like elaborating.

pixelburp

God Jordan Peele is the most frustrating, but also kind of the most fascinating, top tier director. I'd be lying if I said I didn't find a tincture of hype within his reception thus far - but then equally, the man clearly has Imagination and interesting ideas; and I can't in good conscience moan about the dreary gruel Netflix churns out, then crib about a mainstream director operating with Blank Cheque status to riff on whatever genre he thinks of next. Guy's living the dream.

But all that said, and as the credits rolled on this, at first blush I couldn't decide if this was actually any good or not. There were constituent parts that really worked: not least all the haunting cinematography; or that visceral, creeping sense of genuine unease and dread within the first couple of acts; while the gimmick of the antagonist was straight out of the best Doctor Who concepts; and Daniel Kaluuya was magnetic, holding the film together as a talent who can convey so much without speaking - a rare talent. The guy can brood.

But the film was a bit of a hot mess: the plot ambled to the point of being unfocused, distracted; the rest of the cast barely qualified as functional characters - in two specific cases bordering on irritating; while Steven Yeun's backstory and flashbacks were a narrative cul-de-sac that left me confused. Addled enough to make me wonder if I missed some important detail; some nuance of theme too lofty for this knuckle dragger? It was said this was Peele's least sub-textual film so far - but if that's true, it made the film even flimsier. At least subtext allows the viewer's own imagination do some wandering.

But point a camera at the vistas of the American landscape, add some tangible sense of existential dread and I'll always pay attention.

buried

Total $hite, but after his last effort, it wasn't surprising. In the age of streaming productions, Jordan Peele is in the realm of 'top of the class' but that isn't saying a hell of a lot. Made for streaming productions is where he belongs. In 60 years time nobody is going to bother their ar$e watching this.

With a budget of $68 million the 2.5x Revenue to Budget Breakeven rule (not a few argue that the "rule" should actually be 3x) gives a breakeven of $170 million (or $198 Mn on 3x)-

With the movie pretty much done now at the box office the global revenue sits at $149 million.

And that was with one of the kindest possible release slots of the year.

Don't see this being a significant revenue generator out of the cinema either.

I don't even know if I can summon up the will to watch this - "Us" was a desperately turgid hot pile by the end I thought and this sounds worse by a margin.

"The next Hitchcock", "The next Spielberg" mi posterior.

cdgalwegian

On the strength of Get Out - which is, though, over-hyped- and some good reviews, went to see in this in the cinema as the first film post initial lockdown for me, with sci-fi being a genre I love. What a disappointment. Though I had expected a slow build-up, it turned out to be as painfully slow a build-up as in Get Out, though with the latter I was glad in the end not to have turned it off.

What really sticks out for me in this is what Pixelburp refers to as a "narrative dead-end". What it shows is that Peele's flourishes are really that of flattering to deceive - style without substance. The other thing that stuck in my craw was the antagonist's modus operandus, and the way the 'art of concealment' just went completely out the window in the end, simply as the means to give it an exciting end (as well as having other inconsistent details). The narrative dead-end came off as a probable flourish of misdirection; it's not big, and its not clever. A disappointing dud from an over-hyped director.

Butson

Went to see this last night.

Skinwalker Ranch vibes (real place in Utah with very weird goings on) but Jesus it was slow.

Lovely shots of the American expanse and some really cool CGI of the UAP, but apart from that it was desperate. As somebody else said, how annoying was Keke Palmer / her character.