Nope movie review

 Watching Nope, I got the feeling that Jordan Peele was reacting to some of the criticism of Us being pretentious or having too much heavy-handed symbolism. The film now in theaters is much more focused on being a science-fiction thriller, and the themes present are a lot more broad and less at the forefront. I should be disappointed by this, since Us was one of my favorite films of 2019. But the saving grace of Nope is it's scope and pure entertainment value. I can see Peele using it to prove himself capable at helming larger genre films, given his effective handling of big effects and IMAX camerawork.

  The main attraction to me is the characters. Keke Palmer revels in the work she gets to do as an overeager sister, and plays a great foil to her brother OJ. Meanwhile, Steven Yeun has a lot of fun as a former child star named Jupe and Michael Wincott gets one of the films biggest laughs as cinematographer Antlers Holst.

 But the standout is Daniel Kaluuya, who has the hardest job of the ensemble. He needs to communicate a lot of information to the audience about his character without being direct. Watching the scenes where he's silent, I immediately understand why he acts the way he does and why he connects so much to his horses. It really is an incredible performance that I hope he gets proper recognition for.

 While Nope isn't a perfect film (there are some fakeout jumpscares I could've done without), it's still bound to be one of the highlights of my summer movie season, and I can't wait to see it again, mainly because I love these characters.

*** (out of 4)