Nope

Nope (2022)

81% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 301 reviews)

Runtime: 131 really long minutes

Directed by: Jordan Peele

Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Brandon Perea, Steven Yuen, Michael Wincott

From: Universal

You know, ANTLERS HOLST, the entire movie was “exquisitely stupid.” I know, it's another example of me having a controversial opinion (it pains me more than anyone else that this is getting such a low rating) but let me explain.

It did take me some time to watch this movie; one reason is that unlike most, Us did not leave a positive impression. Sure, that had some creepy and effective moments but the story was so preposterous and it REALLY suffered from trying to explain it all... it lost both me and most of the crowd I saw it with. It was a shame as Get Out was something I for certain did enjoy the one time it was viewed-even though that also had an outlandish plot. The trailer was cool as props do have to be given to the usage of Stevie Wonder's Fingertips but I was still apprehensive as to if this would also be seen by me as something overblown and too blunt to deliver whatever messages it was supposed to convey.

I wouldn't say that “overblown” is the right term; “really dumb”, “full of insufferable characters” and “features a big climax that several in the audience loudly scoffed at... including yours truly. Yeah, that happened” is perhaps better. A crying shame, as the idea that sparked the movie was a rather clever one, I thought. Unfortunately, what was created from that idea just did not work for me at all aside from a few scenes. It only took me a few minutes to realize there was trouble when one of the main characters revealed themselves to be absolutely intolerable, a nonstop source of irritation and aggravation. Imagine my “joy” when further intolerable characters not only wormed their way into the story, but became mainstay presences.

Truth be told, the movie lost me early on and it would never recover as it compounded stupid character moments on top of illogic when it came to The Big Bad and a sprinkle on top was an LOL worthy scheme by our “heroes” for profit that made the dumb teen idea at the end of It Follows to stop the curse look like the product of an idea brainstormed by MIT professors. I mean, the It Follows idea was just laughable, something I describe as 'bobo bootleg BS” but that was eclipsed by this. The fact that suddenly popped up title cards out of nowhere (more often than not, a sign of being pretentious in a modern movie) didn't thrill me either. If you were wondering why I uttered the phrase Antlers Holst, that's because this is actually the name of a pretentious cinematographer character who had the perfect comment for what happened during the finale; I'm not sure what the actual cinematographer of this movie-Hoyte van Hoytema-thought of that. At least I can't complain about the job van Hoytema did, nor the sound design.

This had fundamental problems-not all of which I can mention in detail because spoilers-and it was not something I enjoyed overall. Those that are all about noting “woke moments” in movies, note that this seemingly took the piss out of all white people you see. God Bless those that got much more out of the Nope than I did. Me, it was a lame movie that had too many inexplicable moments, a third act that seemed to take forever, and did nothing to pull me back in despite some sequences that I can't criticize. One last thing: there is a subplot present which seemingly stuck out like a sore thumb and after the movie I was baffled as to what it had to do with anything. It took Wikipedia to realize how something present in that tied into the main story. Was it just me not being able to connect the dots... actually, I saw others share the same confusion. 

This is a movie I'll happily say “nope” to retaining much of it in my mind for the rest of time.