Nope

Lukas Parks, Journalist

Nope is a 2 hour and 15-minute horror/Sci-fi film. Written and co-produced by a famous comedian, actor and director, Jordan Peele. The film cast includes the main characters: Emerald(played by Keke Palmer) and OJ(played by Daniel Kaluuya who are siblings that take over their family’s horse ranch after their dad dies from a mysterious accident. OJ is shy and keeps to himself and feels pressure to keep the family business. Emerald is an outgoing, loud and energetic person who’s main goal is to make a name for herself. Overall the acting is respectable, at times the acting felt bland making it difficult to keep my interest. As we meet the other characters, they story becomes more amusing and exciting and pieces start to fall into place.

The movie starts off in a ghost town in the middle of nowhere, California. It begins very slow and confusing, as if there are two story lines. It begins with a horrific monkey destroying everything on a TV show including killing all the characters except one child. The special effects are creepy with lots of blood. This scene is by far the scariest and most emotional part of the movie. Then the movie cuts to the OJ and Emerald at their horse ranch. Throughout the movie its hard to tell if these two stories are connected to each other. Its not until later that you find out how they are related and it is still a head scratcher.

On the ranch a storm passing through causes the horses to go wild, OJ and Emerald notice an object crossing over the sky that night that also causes the electricity to go out, so they set out to investigate. These scenes were filled with suspense and it had me wondering what was going to happen next and will it change the whole plot of the movie. The next morning OJ and Emerald decide to buy cameras to investigate the cause of weird events. Because this will also give them the “perfect photo shot” so they can become rich and famous and hopefully save their family ranch. While purchasing the cameras, we are introduced to Angel played by Brandon Perea , who works at the camera store. Angel is curious to find out what they are up to and tells them he wants to help them out. Angel brings good sense of humor and enthusiastic energy to the film.

As days go by, OJ, Emerald and Brandon start to notice more unnatural things happening like loud screeching noise, they see what they believe to be a UFO and in one scene the object goes over the house and pours blood all over it. The special effects are decent and sometimes look unrealistic but can keep you on the edge of your seat.

Emerald decides to call a film expert. When the expert comes by, he asks to watch the film they have so far. We are not sure about the intentions of the film expert because he rejected Emerald offer earlier in the film and now seems very interested to help out. As they are watching the film, they all notice that there is a strange cloud in the sky that hasn’t moved for days. This cloud is the UFO that is causing these unexplainable things to happen. They begin to plan to capture this UFO in action. The plan is well thought out and they will need everybody on the same page for it to be successful. However, there is a plot twist that affects the plan and causes many unexpected disruptions.

In the next scene, the turning point of the film happens when the survivor of the TV show which was part of the monkey incident hosts a show at his theme park ranch. He invites the audience to experience a life-changing event. The event ends up being the UFO showing up and sucking up the entire audience of 40 people. My thought while watching this happen is why is this guy setting these people up and why is he helping the UFO. You hear and see the people being squeezed alive and screaming inside the UFO. The UFO then spits out any object that he dislikes like keys, coins. This scene confirms that the UFO exists and was the cause of death of OJ and Emeralds dad. More importantly it answers a lot of questions were confusing during the movie.

In the final scene OJ and Emerald’s plan unfolds to capture the perfect shot. There are lots of ups and downs, one of the characters abandons the plan, which relies on the siblings to work close together to survive. These last couple of minutes of the film show the characters true colors and special bond between the siblings.

I would rank the movie 3 out of 5 stars. I only gave the movie three stars because at some points during the movie it was confusing and difficult to understand. The acting was strong which helped make the movie more entertaining. Would I recommend this movie?

…Nope